Cacho, one of Mexico's leading defenders of women's and children's rights, often
risks her own life to tell the stories of those who cannot speak out for
themselves. An investigative journalist and gender-based violence specialist,
Cacho runs a crisis center and shelter in Cancun, a spring break hotspot where
white, sandy beaches and breathtaking coastal views give way to a harsher
reality -- one of sexual exploitation, domestic violence, human trafficking and
child pornography. Her 2005 book, "The Demons of Eden," exposes Cancun as a
destination for child sex tourism.
Throughout her 20-plus years of investigative and advocacy work, Cacho has
received innumerable death threats, and in 1999, was raped in an attempt to
silence her. But those attempts, she says, have only made her stronger and more
sensitive to the needs of victims of violence. Cacho was the 2007 recipient of
the Ginetta Sagan Human Rights Award from Amnesty International USA. Her next
book on trafficking will be released in 2008.
AlterNet spoke with Cacho via telephone.
Heather Gehlert: You live in a country where journalists don't enjoy many
protections and often risk their lives just for writing the truth. What made
you want to become a journalist, and how long have you been doing this?
Lydia Cacho Ribeiro: Well, actually, I guess I started my career path when I
was a little girl. My mom was a feminist and a psychologist. She used to work
in Mexico City, and she would take us with her -- me and my sisters and
brothers -- to play with the kids while she talked to the women and worked with
them in the human rights and stuff like that. I learned very early in life that
a lot of the kids my age were -- would probably never be able to write their
names or tell their stories, and I kept asking my mother, "How come they cannot
do that?" And her answer was always that I was lucky enough to get an
education, and I had a responsibility to these people who might never have one.
HG: So your main interest has pretty much always been human rights?
LCR: I guess so. I mean, that's how they call them now. I just call it being a
good person.
HG: In your most recent book, "The Demons of Eden," you expose a ring of child
prostitution and pornography in Cancun. How did you become aware that this was
happening?
LCR: There was this young woman that went to the police and told them she had
been raped since she was 13, and now she knew that the guy who used her also
for child pornography was still doing that to other kids, including her little
sister and her neighbor. So, as with what happens in many, many cases in
Mexico, the police leaked this information -- the words of the kid -- to some
of the local press in Cancun. So, I learned about the case in the local press
first, and I started writing about it -- talking about the rights of the
victim. And pretty soon this young woman looked for me and she asked me for
help as a journalist. She said she wanted somebody to tell her side of the
story because the press was distorting the story and saying that the kids were
provoking this pedophile. I never, ever thought I was gonna write a book about
that. I've been working as a journalist for many years, and I almost never
write about the victims unless they tell me they want to share their stories.
HG: When you were arrested in 2005, after the book was published, the police
drove you to a jail about 20 hours from your home. What was going through your
mind at the time? What were these people telling you on the way?
LCR: I thought they were going to kill me. I was sure they were abducting me
illegally even though they are policemen. I've been a journalist for 20 years
and I was born in Mexico 44 years ago, so we tend to not trust police just
because we have enough evidence of a lot of police selling their services to
private persons to just kill people or abduct people or things like that. So I
thought they were doing that. They did not give me enough information --
everything was very irregular. The way they arrested me was a big group of
policemen with guns -- I mean, they really arrested me like I was a drug
dealer. So, I thought they were going to kill me -- they kept telling me so.
They told me they were going to drop me in the middle of the ocean, and they
kept asking me if I knew how to swim. They said they were going to rape me and
all sorts of things during 20 hours. Every minute was like the hardest minute.
HG: But you were not hurt. How were you able to avoid being raped and beaten in
that situation?
LCR: This female guard from the jail, she said everything is arranged inside
the jail so you can be raped, and some people are going to beat you badly, and
I just kept asking her to protect me, and she said, "Don't worry, we will." And
she and another guard took me to the infirmary, and I stayed there for hours
until the judge called me.
HG: So now you have federal agents protecting you. How many of them?
LCR: Three of them. I was already protected by federal agents. When they
arrested me, they had been with me for 10 months. And what happened was, they
let me go. They called their boss and the boss said, "Oh, yeah, let her go." So
they let me go even though I yelled at them. I mean, they were pretty far away.
I just yelled -- "You have to follow me; don't let me go alone." And they just
did. They are now all supposedly being investigated by the police, but nothing
will happen.
HG: What kind of precautions do you have to take when you travel?
LCR: I travel everywhere in Mexico in an armored vehicle. It's a #7 armor,
which is -- I think 9 is like the top armor. It means I cannot open the windows
of the car because they are too heavy and the doors and everything. They have
to open them for me. So that's how I go about in my country.
HG: How long can you live like that? It sounds really incredibly difficult.
LCR: It is, it is. Sometimes I just get really frustrated with people taking my
privacy away practically completely.
HG: Do you ever get to go out on your own?
LCR: Well, very few times. Sometimes I just do it for mental health, but my
true freedom is when I travel abroad because they are not with me.
HG: But your loss of personal freedom isn't just because of this book. You've
been running a crisis center and shelter in Cancun for years. Could you talk
about how this began and what kind of work you do there?
LCR: Well, actually, it has been going for a long, long time, and it's just
progressive work. We started a lot of work with women like 20 years ago, when I
arrived in Cancun practically. My mom used to go there with my sister who's
also a psychologist, and we started doing workshops with women. Then we formed
a local group of feminists in Cancun and we started talking about violence, and
a lot of women told us they needed something else and something more than
talking about it. They needed action. Violence against women was not a crime in
Mexico until almost five years ago or so, and it's still not a crime in many of
the states of Mexico, so we started helping women on a very personal level. We
would hide them in a hotel or in a house and some women would get away and try
to get a divorce, and we thought it was very dangerous, but that was the
answer.
HG: What types of violence are these women escaping? Is it primarily violence
within their homes, or is it also coming from the outside?
LCR: They're primarily victims of family violence -- let's say like 60 and 70
percent. Then others are victims of sexual assault, sexual abuse. Or some of
them are victims of trafficking. And that is more difficult.
HG: About how many women come to the shelter every month?
LCR: About 300 -- but it all depends. Violence works in cycles in every
society. It's very strange. For example, in Cancun, when the low season of
tourism starts, it means that a lot of hotels and restaurants, they fire their
waitress and waiters and people like that, and then the men exercise more
violence toward their wives or living partners. That's how they get rid of
their anger. Violence also increases when the kids are going to begin school
and the woman start asking for money to pay for things like books and uniforms.
We do not believe mediation is very effective in most family violence cases.
The men, because they believe they are the owners of the wife or partners, it
just doesn't make sense to do mediation when you have someone that has power
and someone that has not power, not money, or no way to negotiate anything.
HG: Is that different from other battered women's shelters in Mexico?
LCR: Well yes, first of all, the model is based on the feminist point of view,
which means we are not like sisters of charity doing work for poor women who
are suffering. What we are, is we empower women against issues of violence, and
we believe that every woman who comes to us -- rich and poor -- they have the
way to develop the tools to change their lives. So we do not underestimate
women; we do not treat them like kids or order them around; we help them become
empowered survivors. And our model is based not on our project, but on each
woman, which means that they are the center of the model, and it means that the
experts on violence are the victims, not us. So every victim knows how to get
out of that, but we are able to help them draw the map of their possibilities
and that's what we do. We help them take the kids to school. We help them to
get another job. We do not promote this traditional female work like other
shelters do. Like if a woman comes from the lower or middle class, they try to
get them jobs as like maids or cleaning woman. We do not do that. We try to get
them better jobs. So yes, our philosophy is very different.
HG: Are there ever any American tourists who come to the center?
LCR: Oh, yes, absolutely. For 10 years, I have been the only expert that works
for the general district attorney in Cancun, for free of course, to translate
for all young women tourists who are raped because not only do the police do a
terrible translation, they do not help them. They do not believe them. They
just change what they say.
HG: How do you keep from getting discouraged? What makes this type of work
worth the risk for you?
LCR: Well, I don't know, sometimes we do get a little discouraged. The thing is
that there are always a lot more good and happy stories than the bad ones. And
you see these children going to schools for peace and changing the way they see
life or changing the way they see their father and understanding that there are
good men too, and they can become good men too and not batterers like their
fathers. We see happy ending stories every day, and that is what keeps us
going.
