Mam has raised millions with a hectic schedule of meetings all over the globe with the good, the great and the super-rich—from the U.N.’s Ban Ki-moon to the pope. One day she will be speaking at the White House, and the next day she’ll be enthralling schoolchildren in a remote corner of Cambodia.

Mam claims to have rescued thousands of girls and women from sex trafficking, a dangerous and formidable feat. Her story becomes even more inspiring when you hear her shocking tale of being sold into sexual slavery. In 2005, she published her autobiography, The Road of Lost Innocence, which became an international best-seller. Mam was one of Time’s 100 most influential people in 2009 and has over 400,000 followers on Twitter

Former employees in Cambodia of both AFESIP and the foundation admit they knew about some of the questionable techniques used to raise awareness and funding, but they say nobody spoke up due to a mixture of fear of Mam and threats from others. “Why does everybody keep quiet about everything?” Blase asks. “I think it’s very hard to accept that a woman who is in a nurturing position, which she sort of is, has the capacity to be the way Somaly is.… People keep their mouths shut because it’s in their own self-interest to do so.”

It has been rumbling for a while but a scandal in Cambodia surrounding the false claims of a charity dedicated to helping child sex slaves has erupted in the capital Phnom Penh and like rolling thunder will I assume finally hit Hollywood, and New York’s glitterati.

It seems the charities created by Somaly Mam an attractive Cambodian lady lauded in Time magazine in 2009 as one of the world top 100 most influential women and highly praised by the New York Times, are based on considerable hyping.....