It is published here with the generous permission of the autor. I was eleven when I heard that they had come to claim me. I heard them drinking to celebrate the agreement. The day the deal was sealed, there were some pigs and some food ready β¦ I fled.
I was very scared. And then, I felt very guilty for everything that happened after I escaped from my village. The proposal was adopted in Chiapas and the state civil code was amended to only allow adults to marry. As a result it is difficult to know how many women and girls are forced to marry this way. The UN estimates that 5. Within Mexico, Chiapas is the state with the second highest rate of child marriage. All have a high concentration of indigenous population.
In some homes, girls are seen as a burden. Another mouth to feed, [someone else] to dress, buy shoes for. In other cases, they are seen as property. The sale of underage girls continues in Chiapas especially in the area of Los Altos, where they are even exchanged for material goods.
However, they are obliged to respect human rights. Child marriage is clearly not compatible with a respect for human rights. There is tension between custom and uses and respect for human rights. There was a lot of international solidarity for this. According to the INEGI, there were a total of 12, mothers under the ages of 15 in Chiapas in , which make it the third state in Mexico with most teenage pregnancy.
In , Chiapas is now in first place. Of these, are girls between 12 and Talking to women in Los Altos is difficult. First you must get past the male authorities and conversations with women are always through men. This report is made with reports of women who have left their communities, those who have been widowed, separated, abandoned or have fled.
