Growing up, she said, she constantly tried to reconcile her non-traditional ideas about the world with a traditional society. But eventually, Cacho came to enjoy “not having succumbed to become a submissive, quiet Mexican woman.”

Cacho is anything but. She has endured numerous death threats because of her work reporting on domestic violence, organized crime and political corruption. A correspondent for CIMAC news agency and a feature writer for Dia Siete magazine, Cacho boldly shares her viewpoints, helping to enact social and political change in Mexico. She is the recipient of a 2007 Courage in Journalism Award from the International Women’s Media Foundation.

Cacho, 44, describes journalism as a calling that began to manifest itself in her life when she was a child.

“Since I was a little girl I would question everyone and everything,” she said.

In literature classes as a teenager, Cacho’s teachers told her she had a special ability to listen to people. So from the time Cacho saw her byline in print at age 23, she was hooked.

Cacho began her career in the mid-1980s, when she worked for the cultural section of the newspaper Novedades de Cancún. In the 1990s she wrote articles about the prostitution of Cuban and Argentine girls in Cancún. Cacho also hosted the public radio program Estas Mujeres [These Women] from 1994-1999 and anchored the television program Esta boca es mía [This Mouth is Mine] from 2000-2005. She has traveled to Africa and to many countries in Latin America to report on international issues and was also part of the founding group of the Red de Periodistas de Mexico Centroamerica y el Caribe [International Women’s Journalist Network for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean].

Strong role models helped shape Cacho into a powerful woman journalist. Born to and raised by a middle-class family in Mexico City, Cacho said she had many teachers that were “empowered and wise women.” But it was her mother and maternal grandmother who specifically inspired her confidence to speak out.

“She was my guide, my teacher of love and life,” Cacho said of her mother. “But above all she taught me to be ethical and honest and to defend my freedom in order to be true to myself.”

Cacho’s positive influences and her willpower didn’t insulate her from the reality of being a woman journalist in a country that is inching toward Iraq in becoming the most dangerous environment in the world for journalists.

“To live in a country like Mexico without losing hope you have to be courageous,” she said.

From early on in her career, Cacho encountered gender discrimination. Traditional media preferred male journalists, she said. She also found that media outlets wanted reporters to be free of any attachment to social issues, but Cacho instead touts what she calls “integral journalism,” which balances objective facts with subjective perceptions and allows people to understand issues from a more complex and human perspective.

“I’ve always refused to lose my ability to feel compassion,” she said.

Being perceived differently because of her gender is far from the only obstacle Cacho has faced in reporting.

In 2004, she published Los Demonios del Edén [The Demons of Eden], a book based on her research on child pornography among Mexican politicians and businessmen. A year later, she was arrested and accused of defamation by textile magnate Kamel Nacif. Cacho had written in her book that Nacif used his influence to protect a suspected child molester – Cancún hotel owner Jean Succar Kuri – and that one of Kuri’s alleged victims was certain Nacif also abused underage girls.

Cacho said she was driven to a jail 20 hours from her home in Cancún, with officers hinting that there was a plan to rape her. Cacho paid a fine and was freed; she later filed a successful counter-suit for corruption and violation of human rights.

“If in Mexico you go to jail for telling the truth,” she said, “then you get out and keep telling it until things change.”

Nearly a year after this incident, in February 2006, a recording of a conversation between Nacif and Puebla Governor Mario Marin was released to media outlets. The tapes are of the two men at the time of Cacho’s arrest discussing the plan to have her arrested and raped.

In another earlier, unrelated incident, Cacho said she was raped and beaten in the bathroom of a bus station in 1999. She suspects the attack was related to her work.

Even as recently as this year, Cacho has faced threats. On May 8, her car was tampered with in an attempt to cause an accident. Her bodyguards discovered that the nuts had been loosened on one of the wheels, nearly causing the car to crash. The attack came just days after she testified at the trial of accused pedophile Kuri, one of the men she wrote about in her book. During the trial, Kuri’s lawyer attacked Cacho for writing her book. Kuri complained that he was in jail because of Cacho and that he would do away with her.

Because Cacho is unsure if the threats will continue, she has four bodyguards that live and travel with her, 24 hours a day. But even this doesn’t impede her desire to keep writing and telling the truth.

“I never doubted my right to a life of dignity and happiness,” she said.

But in the meantime, Cacho said, the price she pays is high.

“It takes away my freedom,” she said. “I feel like I am a prisoner of the incapacity of authorities to prevail justice.”

Cacho refuses to let her voice be silenced, even if it means driving in an armored car for being honest.

“Every time someone threatens me I file charges,” she said, “not because I believe in the criminal justice system, but to let them know I am not afraid to tell who wants me dead.”

She believes that the Courage in Journalism Award will help draw attention to her situation and the issues she writes about while also raising the “political price” of any attempts to end her life.

Cacho also advocates for the lives of others. She is the founder and director of the Centro Integral de Atención a las Mujeres [Comprehensive Center for Attention to Women] in Cancún, a crisis center and women’s shelter for victims of sex crimes, gender-based violence and trafficking.

“We understand the necessity of action to move toward the elimination of social oppression and all forms of violence and discrimination,” Cacho said of the center, which she has been directing for the past five years.

CIAM grew out of a small feminist group for human rights. In teaching workshops, Cacho and the six other women noticed violence was a huge concern, so in 1998 they formed the crisis center to help women face police corruption and remove themselves from abusive relationships.

Cacho’s dedication to the women at the shelter stems from her belief that every woman and girl – including herself – should be able “to live in a violence-free world in which our happiness and safety are as important as education, food, water, work and love.”

In the future, Cacho hopes to keep working toward this goal at CIAM and also to continue reporting – without bodyguards. She’s also working on a new book about trafficking of women and girls that she plans to publish in 2008.

Cacho describes herself as a “creative survivor,” which helps her to make her voice heard and to have the strength to live each day under threat.

“I guess courage is the fortitude to conjure up your fear,” she said, “and the audacity to plant the seed of your suffering with a true desire that it will eventually blossom as hope and true change.”