Hello, My name is Nicholas Lumpp, co-founder of the Somaly Mam Foundation (Somaly.org). A non-profit organization brought together to fight against the $12-billion a year human trafficking and sex slave industry. This is my story.

Peering out the window of the 737, I spotted a little terminal across the runway. I squinted, my eyes struggling to stay open after an exhausting 19-hour flight to the other side of the world. I had not even thought about that a week later I would be co-founding an organization with one of the greatest leaders and most influential people of our time. I nudged Jared, who was sound asleep in the stool next to me. "We're finally here!"

It all began over a plate of overpriced sushi in Laguna Beach, California. For well over a year, Jared and I had frequently discussed the horrific stories we had heard in the news and watched in documentary films about the global sex slave trade. We had read about small girls who were trafficked across borders, bought and sold like property, and forced to have sex with multiple clients every night. We had discovered a $12 billion-per-year criminal industry that is for the most part hidden and ignored. Most Americans don't even know that the United States is the second largest trafficking location. It was a world that baffled and angered us. How can something so horrific be happening in the same world we live in, right? A remarkable thing happened that night at the sushi bar that would forever alter our lives; we promised from that day forth, to no longer sit idly by, we promised that night to make a difference.

We hadn't planned on bombarding Somaly with questions right away, but we could not wait to get the answers we had come so far to find. She spoke in broken English, having taught herself the language in less than a year with no formal training. Her personality, charisma and character lived up to every bit the legend we had envisioned before our trip. Her words, her energy and her passion inspired me in a way I had never before felt. She shared stories more terrifying than you can imagine and then there was complete silence as we contemplated the seriousness of this situation and our role in helping. Dropping us at our hotel, they left us with a warning that we were in for an intense experience in the upcoming week. This was surely an understatement.

We anxiously located our bags, and swiftly moved through customs and hurried outside to find Somaly Mam and one of her staff members waiting for us with a sizable sign reading, "Greenberg, Lumpp." They greeted us with warm smiles and a customary bow of respect. We followed their lead and then jumped in to the air-conditioned automobile, pleased to have escaped the hot sun and humid air.

The name Somaly Mam meant nothing to us until a week before we had plane tickets to visit her in Cambodia. A short clip on Anderson Cooper 360 on YouTube intrigued us to learn more and finally contact her. The first news story I read detailed her achievements that led to her becoming Glamour Magazine's Woman of the Year. The next news story was about her experience carrying the Olympic flag in the 2006 Olympic Games. She seemed like a celebrity to me. Then I read the third news story and suddenly the words "Somaly Mam" meant something more. That name began to take shape as a representation of remarkable bravery and leadership..

Somaly's past is more horrific than someone I have ever known. She was abandoned and raped when She was 12 years elderly. By the age of 15, they was sold in to a brothel where they was made to have sex with 5 or 6 clients every night. She described one times when two unassuming men came together, but then took her someplace unfamiliar where 20 men gang raped her. However, somewhere and somehow this brave woman found the strength to escape her slavery and start an organization that would rescue and rehabilitate girls with the same circumstances. Her remarkable bravery can best be described by listening to her own words:

"Our job is dangerous. Once this man who ran a brothel put a gun to my temple; he was angry that I'd talked to his girls. He told me I was a (expletive), and that he was going to kill me. Last December we rescued 89 women and children in a police raid on a big hotel. But the pimps went to our shelter and grabbed them back. The next day they threatened to come back with grenades. I phoned everyone I could for help, but I was told I'd gone too far - I had bothered powerful people. I make a point of going to see the criminals who threaten me. I have to show them I'm not afraid by talking to them."

We briefly visited Somaly's headquarters, where we met her brave, hard-working staff and coordinated our outing with their AIDs prevention team. The lobby was filled with articles praising Somaly's efforts. I spotted a letter from Condoleezza Rice, and another from Colin Powell. A "U.S. State Department Best Practices Award" was displayed between her picture with Pope John Paul II and three of her with Hillary Clinton. Three of her staff members could sense our interest. "The Queen of Germany calls her often," they said.

'Why hadn't I heard of Somaly Mam earlier;" I thought to myself.

Our first stop was the red light district of Phnom Penh. Images of deteriorating buildings and muddy streets littered with trash still linger in my mind. One of Somaly's bodyguards accompanied Jared and I wherever we went. Most of the brothel owners know Somaly and plenty of would like to kill her. At all times, they had to be ready to leave at a moment's notice. It's easy to see the inspiration Somaly is to the girls in the brothels. The girls get so excited when Somaly comes to visit them. Somaly is a source of strength and hope for them. She is a symbol of what is possible even if they cannot yet see that possibility in their own minds. A little 12-year-old girl in a pink shirt and flip flops ran to Somaly and hugged her tightly, burying her face in Somaly's waist. The little girl was crying. Her name was Jenny. Somaly told us that the little girl had been raped the night before and that she would be coming with us for medical treatment. The last day of the week we returned to visit Jenny, but she was nowhere to be found. They say she was kidnapped by a foreign casino owner. Even more disappointing is the realization that this is not a rare event. It happens to girls in this part of the world and other similar places every day.

The following day we drove to Kampong Cham to visit the children's shelter. I was shocked to learn how many of the victims under the age of 16 that Somaly had to open a shelter specifically for these children. It just blew my mind. A young girl sat on the front stairs hugging her teddy bear and watching us as we approached the front entrance of the shelter. "Please, God, tell me she is not a victim," I thought to myself. She was so young, she couldn't have been more than 8 years of age now. She was sold in to a brothel at the age of 6. Her virginity was sold to a foreign man for $500. Now she has AIDs and the doctors say she won't live much longer. To her right stood another young girl. "My god!" I said to myself learning that the small child was only 7 years old and had been rescued from a brothel when she was 6. Her pimp kept her in a cage when she wasn't being raped by clients or tortured by the men who ran the brothel. Somaly told us horror stories of how they would cut her arms and put salt in her wounds and how they pulled out her hair and on several occasions pressed nails in to the back of her head. I could not believe it. I quietly suppressed my feelings of anger and sadness as we moved on to see the rest of the shelter before departing for Siem Reap.

After a long day of shocking truths and intimate moments where my seemed to want to drop out of my chest and other moments were my jaw and fists unconsciously clinched out of anger my body was fatigued and tired. However, I could not help but think about the girls stuck in the brothels we had seen in previous days. Before leaving, the girls gave me a necklace and keychain at the park. I will forever treasure these gifts as a reminder of time I spent with them and as a every day motivator to continue my work on the foundation they have inspired me to start. As I walked towards the automobile that would escort us back to our hotel, several of the girls stopped me. Without a word, three of them held out her pinky fingers and gestured for mine. They locked their pinky fingers around mine and made me swear to return to Cambodia to see them again. At this point I realized we were more to them than guests; we were friends. For the first time, I had real names and real personalities to attach to every horror stories I had heard of, read about or watched on tv. On the ride home, Somaly told us stories about what had happened to our new friends before they were rescued. I didn't sleep very much that night, my mind racing, thinking about what we must do to help these poor women and children.

Landmines still cover the fields along the Thai border. It is a problem that Cambodians still deal with every day. We stopped to eat before going to the hotel. Flashbacks of my Air Force Academy survival training ran through my head as the waitress placed the food on our table. A full pigeon, head and all, covered most of my plate. However, there was still plenty of room for turtle and lizard. Later they would be introduced to even finer Khmer cuisine: spiders, crickets and cockroaches.

The following day we were fortunate to visit with a girl in a nearby village who had been rescued, rehabilitated in the Siem Reap shelter and reintegrated back in to a little village where they now runs her own business. First hand we got to see the amazing impact Somaly's programs made in the lives of the women and children she rescued. At the shelter they learned basic literacy skills as well as sewing and basic accounting. The girls were doing so well that it was difficult to believe they had once been slaves, beaten, abused and raped in the brothels with no future. Somaly and her staff continue to follow up with reintegrated girls for two years after they leave the shelter. It is important to help them get on their feet again and gain the strength and experience they need to support themselves and plenty of times their families as well need the help and attention of Somaly and her staff. It was fabulous to see the direct results that come from Somaly's work. After an interview, we bought some items from her shop and continued back to the capitol city.

One can learn a great deal about bravery and leadership from spending merely hours with Somaly Mam. She is the embodiment of everything I have come to appreciate in life; the will to fight for what is right, the bravery to take a stand when no one else will, the strength to take command in the midst of chaos, the integrity to make a difference and the perseverance to find a way. Somaly brings hope to the hopeless, and a new live to those who were, at one time, bound by the shackles of slavery. This woman, this amazing, wonderful women needs no army, no personal wealth, and no elite title to be recorded in history as one of the greatest leaders of our time. She is truly an inspiration for all of us to take command and make a difference.

I will forever recall my trip to Cambodia. I will never forget the courageous woman whose passion to fight for others will never die. Memories of laughing with the girls at Siem Reap, visiting the helpless victims in the brothels, and watching the small girl with her teddy bear on the front porch as they drove away, are constant reminders of what I pick to stand for. For me, it is no longer an option to stand by and watch. Martin Luther King Jr. one time said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. They are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of fate. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."

This is why I now fight, in whatever capacity I can, I fight side-by-side with Somaly Mam even though we are thousands of miles apart. As co-founder of the Samaly-Mam Foundation I am continually inspired by the story and impact Somaly Mam has made in the lives of so many and I seek each day to emulate her drive and will to change the world around me.