In this episode of Considered before consuming, Lydia Cacho recounts her journey as an investigative journalist, exposing child sexual exploitation and human trafficking.

She shares with us how the pornography industry plays a direct role in grooming victims,

normalizing violence, and fueling global trafficking networks.

Lydia shares stories from her investigations, including her infiltration of trafficking rings

and the extreme risks she has faced in working to fight exploitation.

With that, let's jump into the conversation.

We hope you enjoy this episode of Consider Before Consuming.

Lydia, thank you so much for joining us on Consider Before Consuming today.

You have such a wealth of knowledge and experience

on the topics that we address at Fight the New Drug. To start, can you share your journey

as a journalist and a human rights activist and what led you to focus on exposing issues

like child sexual exploitation and trafficking?

Sure. Well, thank you for inviting me. I'm a big fan of everything that you do,

and it's so important nowadays to have this conversation. So thank you. Well, I'm a Mexican journalist.

I'm an investigative journalist, and when I began working as such, 35 years ago in Mexico, I immediately started covering issues regarding violence against women and violence against children because nobody was covering.

So I was a crazy journalist, a crazy reporter in the newspapers in where I work.

But I didn't care.

I come from a feminist family and a family that has always talked openly about sexuality and emotions.

My mom was a psychologist. So I guess that background of feeling

safe and acknowledging my own power as a woman, as a girl, as a young woman, to be able to talk

about sexuality and to be safe,

to feel safe in a country like Mexico or anywhere else.

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