Happy to be me
23rd June 2010, 03:00 PM
Lydia Cacho: Fighting Sex Slavery
15 Jun 2010, 11:00
From going undercover dressed as a nun or pole dancer to speaking directly to child victims as young as four, Lydia Cacho has doggedly collected evidence of a rampant sex slave trade in Mexico. It's tentacles stretch from the mafia all the way up to some very high-ranking government officials. It's a quest that's seen her kidnapped, then imprisoned for her trouble...and still facing constant death threats.
Cacho's journey into this murky world started when she founded a high security shelter for battered and sexually-exploited women and children in the resort town of Cancun, where she lives.
Following in her mother's activist footsteps, her first attempts to raise the issue of violence against women were on a local radio show. After being visited by a group of women who begged for protection against their violent husbands, she went about finding a safe place for them. The Cancun shelter has now been running for 10 years.
Since then, Cacho has become a humanitarian "force of nature", regularly putting her life on the line in the name of social change. Her tales of adventure are grim and extreme, as she recounts surviving abduction, jail and torture by state agents, before garnering protection from the likes of Amnesty International and the authors group PEN.
In this riveting session from the Sydney Writers Festival, Cacho says taking on the sex traffickers of Mexico wasn't something she chose, it happened more accidently.
Lydia Cacho is in conversation with Sydney-based journalist Mara Moustafine.
Lydia Cacho was the first woman in Mexican history to take to trial an organised crime ring involved in child pornography and the trafficking of women. As a journalist and feminist activist against violence, Cacho is a columnist on 'El Universal', and a workshop teacher on successful approaches to help trafficking victims. She has been named 2010 World Press Freedom Hero and is a recipient of the UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize. Cacho's most recent book is called "Slaves of power: a world map of sex traffickers".
Awesome interveiw!!
Hope it brings internatioal awareness at least!!
15 Jun 2010, 11:00
From going undercover dressed as a nun or pole dancer to speaking directly to child victims as young as four, Lydia Cacho has doggedly collected evidence of a rampant sex slave trade in Mexico. It's tentacles stretch from the mafia all the way up to some very high-ranking government officials. It's a quest that's seen her kidnapped, then imprisoned for her trouble...and still facing constant death threats.
Cacho's journey into this murky world started when she founded a high security shelter for battered and sexually-exploited women and children in the resort town of Cancun, where she lives.
Following in her mother's activist footsteps, her first attempts to raise the issue of violence against women were on a local radio show. After being visited by a group of women who begged for protection against their violent husbands, she went about finding a safe place for them. The Cancun shelter has now been running for 10 years.
Since then, Cacho has become a humanitarian "force of nature", regularly putting her life on the line in the name of social change. Her tales of adventure are grim and extreme, as she recounts surviving abduction, jail and torture by state agents, before garnering protection from the likes of Amnesty International and the authors group PEN.
In this riveting session from the Sydney Writers Festival, Cacho says taking on the sex traffickers of Mexico wasn't something she chose, it happened more accidently.
Lydia Cacho is in conversation with Sydney-based journalist Mara Moustafine.
Lydia Cacho was the first woman in Mexican history to take to trial an organised crime ring involved in child pornography and the trafficking of women. As a journalist and feminist activist against violence, Cacho is a columnist on 'El Universal', and a workshop teacher on successful approaches to help trafficking victims. She has been named 2010 World Press Freedom Hero and is a recipient of the UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize. Cacho's most recent book is called "Slaves of power: a world map of sex traffickers".
Awesome interveiw!!
Hope it brings internatioal awareness at least!!