The Power of a Girl

[ismnotwasm]

I come from a family lineage of strong women who lived by the feminist credo long before the term became fashionable. My French grandmother fought to shelter and save political activists pursued and persecuted by the dictatorships of Oliveira Salazar in Portugal and Franco in Spain. My mother was an activist for women’s rights in Mexico’s poorest areas. They are the ones who taught me to take responsibility for and act upon what I witnessed.

Yet following the family trend didn’t come naturally to me. When I moved to Cancun in my twenties, I envisioned a quiet life, a slightly nostalgic existence, in which I would stare out at the sea, paint and write novels. Fortunately, my journalistic instincts soon took hold. Cancun was a male-made paradise built with the principal purpose of making money and catering to the whims of holiday-goers from Mexico’s neighbors to the north. The city was devoid of its original, authentic population so I went in search of the displaced people who had been relocated to the surrounding countryside. There, few had running water; most lacked food and the bare essentials for a dignified existence. I met a malnourished woman whose baby had just died of hunger just a few miles away from the lush beach resort I was trying to call home, presenting a stark contrast to the luxury and hedonism of Cancun. True to my mother’s legacy, I began writing about what I encountered in the local paper, unaware at the time that my life’s course would take a dramatic change.

Through my work as a journalist in the ensuing years, I have tracked and reported on organized crime rings that sexually exploit girls the world over. I have built a secure shelter for battered women. I have brought paedophiles to justice. I have fought sexual tourism, human trafficking, child pornography and every other type of brutality inflicted upon women and girls.

For my efforts, I have been rewarded with incarceration, threats and harassment. I have been beaten and demonized in the public eye. Yet I haven’t taken a step back, not because I am unaware of the dangers surrounding me. Fear is all too real and violence remains an efficient means by which to silence people like me. But my strength comes from girls and their power has become my own. Here is why:

https://www.chimeforchange.org/stories/the-power-of-a-girl?pillar=justice

[loudsue]

1. This is so awesome. I've been forwarding a link to this story far and wide.

Bless this author and the many women who have helped her through the years.

And Goddamn those who have benefited from ANY kind of human trafficking. EVER.

[ismnotwasm]

2. Agree

Glad it could help