Shay Mitchell Joins Fight Against Sex Trafficking

Pretty Little Liars actress Shay Mitchell recently joined the fight against sex trafficking.

She visited Cambodia in February with the Somaly Mam Foundation to help promote the cause and spent three weeks traveling the country, meeting some of the young girls that the foundation has helped.

In a video created with the Cause Effect Agency, she tells of how more than 2 million women and children are sold as slaves each year. The video also tells you how you can get involved at Somaly.org.

Cambodia is mostly considered a ‘transit country’ for sex slaves traveling from Vietnam to Thailand although slaves are also taken to the major cities and forced to work. More than 80 percent of the human traffic is women and children.

Somaly Mam has been fighting against the sex trade since 1996. Since childhood, Somaly had been living in terrible conditions and aged 12 was married to a man who raped and beat her regularly. He then sold her to a brothel. She escaped after seeing her best friend murdered by her captors and which was when she set up AFESIP (Agir Pour les Femmes en Situation Precaire). Despite being named one of the Top 100 Women in the world, she still spends two nights a week on the streets and in brothels, meeting girls and offering support.

Shay is not the only celebrity to show support for the cause; the charity has received support from a huge number of celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey, Ashlee Simpson and Bonnie Raitt.