Lydia Cacho

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Lydia Cacho Ribeiro (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.

Cacho, who currently lives in Cancún, Quintana Roo, is the author of the book Los Demonios del Edén (Devils in the Eden) where 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 Mexican businessman of Lebanese origin, of protecting Succar Kuri.

Nacif Borge sued Cacho for defamation in Puebla, and a group of policeman of the state 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 Mexican newspaper La Jornada, creating a media frenzy. In these conversations, before the arrest of Cacho, Marin and Nacif Borge discussed putting Cacho in jail as a favour, and having her beaten and abused while in jail to silence her. ^[1]^[2] She turned from accused to accuser.

While being held, Cacho was granted the "Premio Francisco Ojeda al Valor Periodístico" (Francisco Ojeda Award to Journalistic Courage) ^[3]

"LYDIA CACHO At the time of this writing, 13 May 2006, Lydia Cacho has taken the cause of the unsolved murders at Ciudad Juarez 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 patters of abuse, rape, mutilation and are discarded as offal in pathetic scenes in the desert and the city of Juarez. Young women from factories, helpless in their need to take public transportation, the last one makes a last stop at death: this is one of the main patters for their deaths. Of course, the other is drugs and prostitution. But that they die is not ever, ever, acceptable.

Lydia Cacho has raised a voice for these deaths of women in Cd. Juarez. That more news about these deaths is known around the world than published in Mexico or brought to the forefront in Mexico, is one more reason why this journalist is a hero of a world-class."