Lydia Cacho

Lydia Cacho
Born	12 April 1963 (1963-04-12) Mexico City, Mexico
Organization	Red Internacional de Periodistas con Visión de Género
Awards	Amnesty International Ginetta Sagan Award for Women and Children's Rights (2007) UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize (2008) Wallenberg Medal(2009)) PEN's International Writer of Courage Prize (2010)

Lydia Cacho Ribeiro (born Mexico City, 12 April 1963) is a Mexican journalist and feminist and human rights activist. She is a member of the Red Internacional de Periodistas con Visión de Género.

Biography

Lydia Cacho Ribeiro was born to a mother of Portuguese and French origin who moved from France to Mexico during World War II and then married a military mechanical engineer. Cacho herself met a foreigner and then settled in Cancún, Quintana Roo, in 1985. She began working for the cultural section of the newspaper Novedades de Cancún and a decade later wrote articles about the prostitution of Cuban and Argentine girls in the city. In 2003, Cacho wrote articles on the sexual abuse of minors for the newspaper Por Esto including a note on a girl abused by a local hotel owner. ("A bote pronto: Lydia Cacho, periodista", Life & Style, November 2006, #27). "Her enemies tried to rape her to force her into silence. But she remained undeterred..." says Amnesty International in an email. However, instead of giving in, she exposed the problem.

Los Demonios del Edén

Cacho then wrote the book Los Demonios del Edén (Demons of Eden) in which she accuses Jean Succar Kuri of being involved in a ring of child pornography and prostitution, based on official statements from his alleged victims and even a video of him (filmed with hidden camera). The book mentions important politicians as Emilio Gamboa Patrón and Miguel Ángel Yunes as involved, and mentioned Kamel Nacif Borge, a Puebla businessman, of protecting Succar Kuri.

Nacif Borge sued Cacho for defamation in Puebla, and a group of policemen of the state illegally arrested her in Quintana Roo and extradited her from one state to another. She said she didn't know the reason for her arrest since she hadn't received a subpoena before. She paid a fine and was freed.

On February 14, 2006, several telephone conversations between Nacif Borge and Mario Marín, governor of the state of Puebla, were revealed by the Mexico City daily La Jornada, creating a media frenzy. In these conversations, before Cacho's arrest, Marín and Nacif Borge discussed putting Cacho in jail as a favour, and having her beaten and abused while in jail to silence her.

On 29 November 2007, the Supreme Court ruled 6 to 4 that Marín had no case to answer in Cacho's arrest, jailing and harassment, after which the United Nations Human Rights Council advised her to leave the country and offered her political asylum, legal assistance, and access to international courts.

While being held, Cacho was granted the Premio Francisco Ojeda al Valor Periodístico (Francisco Ojeda Award for Journalistic Courage).

By May 2006, Cacho had taken the cause of the unsolved murders in Ciudad Juárez as a call to action against impunity of abuse of women in Mexico. What is an ongoing horror abroad, the chronic discovery of murdered women whose corpses are discovered in repeated patterns of abuse, rape, mutilation and are discarded as offal in pathetic scenes in the desert and urban surroundings of Ciudad Juárez. Young women from factories are said to be helpless in their need for public transportation. This is a common pattern for these women's deaths.

Awards and honors

Lydia Cacho received the 2007 Amnesty International Ginetta Sagan Award for Women and Children's Rights and the IWMF (International Women's Media Foundation) Courage in Journalism Award.

In 2008 she received the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize.

In 2009, Cacho was awarded the Wallenberg Medal from the University of Michigan for her courageous work as a journalist who fights to bring to public attention the corruption that shields criminals who exploit women and children.

In 2010, Cacho was recipient of PEN's International Writer of Courage Prize, which goes to writers persecuted for their beliefs. She was also named a World Press Freedom Hero of the International Press Institute.

On September 15, 2011 Lydia Cacho received The International Hrant Dink Award, presented to people who work for a world free of discrimination, racism and violence, take personal risks for their ideals, use the language of peace and by doing so, inspire and encourage others. On October 29 of the same year, she also won the Civil Courage Prize of The Train Foundation, which she shared with Triveni Acharya for efforts against "sex trafficking, domestic violence and child pornography".

She received the 2011 Olof Palme Prize together with Roberto Saviano.

See also

• Human rights in Mexico
• Jean Succar Kuri
• Kamel Nacif Borge
• Mario Plutarco Marín Torres

Publications

• Los Demonios del Edén (2005) Paperback: 224 p. Grijalbo Mondadori, ISBN 968-5957-58-4. México.

External links

• Lydia Cacho's Blog
• "Mexico's Most Wanted Journalist," an interview with Lydia Cacho at MotherJones.com, May 1, 2007
• "Defamation Case Raises Issues of Fairness in Mexico" The New York Times February 20, 2006
• Suspected plot to silence Cacho revealed - IFEX
• Reporters Without Borders' English-language chronology of the case
• International PEN's report on Cacho Ribeiro's December 2005 arrest (English)
• An article on her being held by police in what may be an attempt to stop her from accusing important people in Mexico
• Article from La Jornada with transcriptions of some of Nacif's conversations with his associate Hanna Nakad Bayeh; includes Lydia Cacho's account of how she narrowly avoided a planned sexual assault while in custody
• Interview with Mother Jones, May 2007
• CityMayors story