Lydia Cacho wins Olof Palme Prize 2011

Lydia Cacho, Mexican journalist and writer, and Roberto Saviano, Italian author, were awarded with Olof Palme Prize 2011. They both spoke about justice and human rights issues in their native countries with a great deal of courage, and currently they are living under threats and persecution.

In 2009, Lydia Cacho received a lot of attention at the Göteborg Book Fair, where she presented the translated version of her book "I will not let myself be intimidated". She wrote it based on her life experience in Mexico – her motherland, where she is known for her accusations of corruption among Mexican politicians and businessmen.

In 2005, by having written "Demons of Eden", she exposed paedophile Succar Kuri's network in Cancun and named several accomplices among high-ranking politicians and businessmen. Since that moment the author has lived under constant death threats. Besides being an author and having written seven books in total, since 2000, Lydia Cacho has been sheltering vulnerable women and children in Cancún, where they get an opportunity to retreat.

"… due to their tireless, sacrificing and often lonely struggle for their ideals and fellow human beings. They remind us of the need to also focus on the countries that we regard as democratic, countries in which women and children are cruelly exploited, enslaved and destroyed by global criminal networks, which also threaten democracy itself as a system," justified the Olof Palme Memorial Fund the award to Lydia Cacho and Roberto Saviano, who wrote at length about the Italian Mafia.

Olof Palme Prize, established in 1987 by the board of the Olof Palme Memorial Fund, is an annual prize for a particularly significant achievement in the spirit of Olof Palme. The prize carries 75,000 U.S. dollars and a diploma. The awarding ceremony will be held in the Swedish Parliament on January 27, 2012.