It was the morning of July 3, 2008 within the opening plenary of the 8th version of the Women’s World Congress held in Madrid Spain. The topic is “Equality is Not a Utopia� and the symbol is the butterfly.

I have been given a full grant to present the book Women, Metamorphosis of the Butterfly Effect and the resonance methodology. It is not my turn yet. The opening session will take place first. One speaker is Teresa Lange, head of the Universidad Complutense that hosts the gathering of more than 3,000 women from 100 countries.  She will inaugurate the meeting with her speech.

Then she will present Somaly Mam from Cambodia. I do not know her. She is very small. I can hardly see her behind the main table. She looks somewhat scared but determined. Lange presents her.

The resonance is immediately there. “The logo of this even is the butterfly. The symbol of the butterfly encompasses everything that the butterfly stands for which is what also characterizes the women who I will present to you to be one of the main speakers. Eternity, beauty, lightness, metamorphosis, hope, life and freedom.  Somaly represents that because hers is the struggle for the rights of the most disenfranchised in the world. She represents the enormity of the struggles of all feminists today both because of what she has undertaken. But she also represents the hope and common strength, because of her capacity to be reborn time after time again, and her capacity to metamorphosize her pain into beauty and to transform her vital strength into social force. Because of her solidarity with those that could hardly survive without her support and the way she finds new ways that filter through consciousness to make them fly like the butterfly. The immortality of her action that trespass all barriers and frontiers, because despite the gross violations of rights, her determination brings hope. You are motor of a collective dram of our global common cause. She has been able to convert her private ghosts in public action.�

Teresa was talking about a small Cambodian woman who has challenged the trafficking networks in one of the regions where they operate at their worse: Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and even Thailand.

Somaly was born in the Mondulkiri province of Cambodia. Mam was sold into sexual slavery in her childhood. Beaten, raped and tortured as a child, at the age of 30 she became a spokeswoman for women and children tortured in the brothels of Cambodia. She created the AFESIP (Agir pour les Femmes en Situation Précaire) a non-governmental organization NGO in 1997 in Cambodia to free and help to socially reintegrate people who are victims of trafficking. Despite threats against her, Somaly Mam has been able to help thousands of young girls and teenagers who have been coerced into prostitution. The Somaly Mam Foundation was created in 2007 as a  nonprofit organization dedicated to combating the global sex slave trade through the rescue, rehabilitation, and reintegration of the victims and through raising global awareness on the issue. In 1998 she received the prestigious Prince of Asturias Awards for International Cooperation, in the presence of Queen Sofia of Spain.

After she talked to the plenary about her work and plight, she sorrowfully denounced that two days earlier the 23 year old daughter of her colleague Sophia had been kidnapped. Sophia was special to her. Somaly had said that when she had first come out with her own testimony, most friends abandoned her, but Sophia came closer to become her right hand in the struggle against trafficking.

Sophia’s eyes were blurred in pain but she stood with Somaly, giving her friend the strength she said she needed to deliver her speech. “Especially to use the power point – she added as she laughed - I can fight and struggle, but speeches and technology make me nervous.�

Shokny Chhun dissapeared on June 1st. in Cambodia, presumably to be taken to a brothel and forced into prostitution.

After the speech and while most participants went to greet Somaly, I went straight to the other “butterfly�. Now it was her own daughter who was gone.

She was leaving the Congress in a hurry although she could not return to her country to search directly for her daughter. I asked her what we could do. “Put pressure on the Government of Cambodia to help in this case and every other case, she said as she left with Somaly.

FIRE’s microphone in my hand, Wings of the Butterfly resonance methodology in the Congress could do it. Today, July 8 at the Human Rights Working Group towards Congress resolutions, the plenary accepted my proposal. It reads like this: “The 3,000 women gathered here are urging the Cambodian Government to contribute to find and bring to safety the daughter of an activist against human trafficking kidnapped in June 1 st in Cambodia and to help with all cases of trafficking. We also ask the Government of Spain to support our cause.�

Butterfly effect and resonance come in many forms, I hope Sophia’s daughter alongside all others find their way home to a program that is ran by those that have grown wings out of their suffering and pain. 

     

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