Lydia Cacho: La Mujer Sin Miedo

Over the summer and last semester (Fall 2007), I was embarrassed to only having recently found out about Lydia Cacho. Lydia Cacho is a Mexican journalist and human rights activist who has been persecuted and threatened by some of the most powerful politicians in Mexico. I was listening to Latino USA and it was the first time I heard of Cacho, as well, I learned that the Mexican Supreme Court had ruled that against her in her kidnapping case. She contested that the government of the Mexican state of Puebla wrongly arrested (but really kidnapped) and jailed her. All this stems from her release of her book titled Los demonios de Eden (The Demons of Eden:The Power that Protects Child Pornography). In the book she reveals the names and history of several powerful businessmen and politicians that have been running a Cancún-based pedophilia ring. In the book she names Lebanese-born businessman Jean Succar Kuri who allegedly is the ring leader. "Her work portrayed a mafia-esque cabal of politicians, drug traffickers and businessmen who supported and protected the operations, among them Puebla textile mogul José Kamel Nacif Borge. Although Cacho did not level any specific charges against Nacif, in naming him as a friend of Succar, she implied that he too might be involved in the criminal activities" (Council on Hemispheric Affairs). About 7 months after the release of her book, she was kidnapped in Cancún and taken to a jail in Puebla. She claims that on the frightening trip to Puebla, her arrestors taunted her by pointing a gun to her face and threatening to rape her. She has been charged with libel and slander against the men she accused of pedophilia. This case became a local, national, and international outrage. I can´t recall the whole account on my blog, but you read the entire story from the Lydia Cacho link.
My research revolves around Mexican women journalists from the turn of the century in Mexico. Radical journalists such as Juana Belén Gutiérrez de Mendoza suffered some of the same persecutions as Cacho. Yet Cacho is different in that she has an international support team such as Defendingwomendefendingrights.org . Juana Belén didn´t have a support team such as Cacho does today. I am certainly not claiming that Cacho is an activist because she has a support group and body guards. She was activist first, not the other way around! Cacho is doing what many people fear to do, and that is to expose the truth about the corruption in Mexican politics. They still rule under old machismo rule of law doing whatever they want, ruining people´s lives (in this case young girls), and thinking they can get away with it. They didn´t count on someone like Lydia Cacho to be looking over their dirty shoulders, someone to gather the innocent in their arms and listen to them speak, someone like Lydia Cacho to stand up to their machismo and untouchable attitudes! God bless those that expose and exposed (memory of Juana) the oppression of the victims of violence and those who continue to put their lives on the line for others. ¡¡Adelante, Lydia Cacho!!