Lydia Cacho, author, journalist and winner of the 2008 Tucholsky prize from Swedish PEN and the 2007 Oxfam/Novib PEN Award for Free Expression. Following publication of her book on child abuse and pornography rings in Cancún, "The Demons of Eden", Cacho was illegally arrested, detained, physically ill treated and threatened with rape and death.

The Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN (WiPC) is marking International Women’s Day (8 March) by celebrating the work of four women writers under threat in Latin America. The women are: Colombian playwright and activist Patricia Ariza, Peruvian student poet Melissa Patiño, and Mexican authors and journalists Lydia Cacho and Sanjuana Martínez Montemayor.

In their press release announcing the campaign, PEN states that the women “are facing harassment by state and non state actors that reflect on one hand the political polarisation affecting Latin America, and on the other, resistance to coverage of a topic that remains decidedly taboo in the region: sexual abuse.”

PEN sees these two themes played out in the threats against women writers. They are either accused of being left-wing terrorists or they are targeted for having written about sexual exploitation. In the cases of the women they have singled out in their campaign: Patricia Ariza and Melissa Patiño have been accused of terrorist affiliations on the basis of their alleged collaboration with left-wing political groups, and the Mexican authors Lydia Cacho and Sanjuana Martínez Martínez, have been targeted for harassment as a direct result of their exposés of sexual exploitation and paedophilia.

PEN also observes that attacks against writers, and against women writers in particular, have increased in South America over the last year. PEN’s “figures for 2008 show a total of 191 attacks against writers and journalists recorded in the Americas, all but 7 in Latin America.” (For more information about the situation in the region, go here. ) They have also determined that most of the women writers are journalists, and the most common threats are death threats.

PEN invites you to help in their campaign by sending letters of appeal on behalf of the writers they are advocating for.