Lost opportunity: the Lydia Cacho case and child rights in Mexico

This paper provides a close analysis of a scandal that broke in Mexico following publication of a book that accused businessmen and politicians of involvement in child trafficking and paedophilia. The book’s author, Lydia Cacho, was abducted, imprisoned, threatened with violence and charged with defamation. As further evidence of complicity in the protection of paedophile rings surfaced, a firestorm of public anger and media scrutiny focussed on the plight of Cacho and key political figures including a state governor. A rare political space was thus opened for a debate on child rights. Yet it was a space that csos and child rights networks failed to exploit. This paper examines how child rights discourse had limited salience in circumstances where csos were compromised, uncommitted and disunited. Developing the concept of a ‘rights effect’, we argue that advocacy for child rights must not assume a natural fellowship with discourses of human rights generally, or with women’s rights, press freedoms and rule of law.