In 2008, Somaly Mam was the co-winner of the $150,000 World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child, awarded by the Swedish Children’s World Association to recognize those who defend the rights of children. In 2006, she was honored as one of Glamour magazine’s women of the year.
Glamour magazine made her story more widely known through a September 2006 article by Mariane Pearl, a journalist and widow of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
“It’s one thing to know theoretically that there is child prostitution and really dire conditions in those brothels, but it was shocking,” said Pearl, who visited Somaly Mam in Phnom Penh in May that year. “The girls that Somaly introduced me to are babies. … They needed an ambassador. They needed someone to say, ‘OK, this is what’s going on.’ She has the courage to say that, and without her there’s just no voice.”