Mariane Pearl spans globe in ‘Search of Hope’

When Lydia and I finally make it out of the traffic jam in Mexico City, I realize that there are no bodyguards following us. “I lost them!” she says with a childlike smile, and for a moment we feel silly, free, and far away from the world’s problems, as if we are characters in one of my favorite movies, Thelma and Louise.

Later, as we walk together along the suburb’s cobblestone streets, an old man on crutches approaches me. “Is that Lydia Cacho?” he asks. I nod. “Please tell her to be careful,” he whispers. “There are evil people chasing her.”

Lydia continues to tell me her story, explaining how she made waves again early in her career by writing about the proliferation of HIV in the Cancún area. The local governor called her at 11 on the night the story ran, she says. He told her, “There is no AIDS in my province.” She replied, “In yours maybe not, but in mine, yes!” The next day she appeared on a radio show and talked about the call. This very public act surprised her fellow journalists. “Even my colleagues didn’t understand me,” Lydia says. “Sadly, many Mexican journalists are easy to buy. Some of my counterparts live on bribe money, and those who won’t give in to bribes usually get killed.”

Lydia kept writing, mainly about government corruption and domestic violence, and soon she began receiving phone calls threatening her life. In 1998 she was brutally beaten and raped in the bathroom of a bus station. Despite suffering a concussion and broken ribs, she got herself to a hospital. Lydia doesn’t know whether the attack was related to her work, but the experience made her even more determined to stand up for women.

At the same time, Lydia decided that reporting wasn’t enough. So she raised money to build a center for battered women. “Women had no rights, and if they stood up for themselves they could be beaten or killed,” she tells me. Women now come to the shelter from all walks of life: wives of drug dealers and farmers, as well as American girls who get assaulted on spring break. The center provides health care and schooling for children.

Lydia set off the biggest firestorm of her career with her book about the pedophile ring in Cancún, Los Demonios del Edén (The Demons of Eden). She was arrested on libel charges in 2005; under Mexican law, Lydia explains, reporters have to prove that they didn’t intend to damage the reputation of their subject. She says she was driven by police to a jail 20 hours from Cancún. During the drive, the officers hinted at a plan to rape her, but ultimately she was released unharmed.

Then, in February 2006, the media got hold of a tape on which a businessman named in her book appeared to be plotting with a Mexican governor to have her arrested and raped. (The men dispute the legality of the tape.) Amnesty International filed protests on her behalf, and Lydia talked about it on shows such as ABC’s Nightline. “This is my strategy,” she says. “Each time someone threatens me, I talk about it publicly.”

Lydia, who still faces some libel charges, tells me that Mexico’s Supreme Court is investigating whether her civil rights were violated during her arrest. She is continuing to work as a reporter while also teaching journalism workshops. “Reporters are not world-peace missionaries,” she says. “But by conveying people’s struggles, we create awareness, which is the first step to bringing about change.”

When I leave Mexico City, I fear for Lydia’s life, but I also feel inspired by everything she stands for. I understand her humble sense of triumph. Knowledge and responsibility bring hope, while ignorance feeds fear. If Lydia were to stop now, she would be like someone who sees light at the end of a tunnel but chooses to remain in the dark.

Back in Paris with my little boy, I think about what I would say to him if he ever wanted to become a reporter. I would tell him that journalism — the search for what is true about our world, whether good or bad — was the cement of my relationship with his father. I so believe in the importance of this profession that I could never oppose the same ambition in my child.

As we are having dinner one night, Adam asks me about my trip to Mexico. He wants to know if I caught any bad guys. “No,” I answer.

“But wait a few years and I’ll tell you about a woman named Lydia.”

Glamour will donate 100 percent of its proceeds and royalties from all books sold on glamour.com to charities selected by the women profiled.

Excerpted from “In Search of Hope: The Global Diaries of Mariane Pearl” by Mariane Pearl. Copyright © 2007 Mariane Pearl. Excerpted by permission of PowerHouse Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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