28S: Girls, adolescents, and the right to choose in Guatemala

• Nahualá: where many girls are raised to be wives and mothers
• A right denied: The right to abortion in Guatemala
• Therapeutic abortion: is it really accessible?
• Care route for victims of sexual violence
• Where is the State?

Adolescent pregnancy in Guatemala accounts for between 16% and 18% of all births. In 2022, UNFPA reported that 176 girls and adolescents became mothers every day, equivalent to more than 64,000 births per year.

In January and February 2025, the National Registry of Persons in Guatemala reported 4,316 babies born to mothers between the ages of 10 and 17. Ninety-six of the births were by girls aged 10 to 13, 270 to girls aged 14, and 3,930 to adolescents aged 15 to 17. As of April 30, 2025, 754 pregnancies were reported to girls under 14. OSAR Guatemala

The situation is alarming, and we are left to wonder what is the State doing to guarantee the protection of adolescents’ lives, safety, integrity, and human rights?

In the context of September 28th, the “Global Day of Access to Safe and Legal Abortion,” we spoke with a Guatemalan organization and partner of the FCAM Foundation to get a closer look at the reality of girls and adolescents in the municipality of Nahualá.

Nahualá: where many girls are raised to be wives and mothers

Nahualá is a municipality in the department of Sololá with a high pregnancy rate. In 2024, 218 pregnancies were recorded among adolescents between the ages of 13 and 19, according to data from the Guatemala Reproductive Health Observatory (OSAR).

Communities in Nahualá experience high rates of early marriages, violence against women, and intimate partner violence. The patriarchal model in these communities has made it so girls, adolescents, and women lack many opportunities.

It’s not uncommon for Kʼicheʼ Mayan girls and adolescents to be taught from an early age to play the role of mothers and wives. Therefore, their education is not a priority, which explains the low educational attainment of many of them.

Due to this situation, many girls “lack knowledge about human rights and sexuality. They feel embarrassed, afraid, ashamed, uncomfortable, and insecure about addressing issues related to sexuality.” They have difficulty identifying different types of violence, and many lack a short-, medium-, and long-term life plan.

To make matters worse, many women and adolescents in relationships are not allowed to use contraception since it is their partner who decides how many children they will have.

A large number of people in Nahualá are conservative Christians, either Catholic or Protestant. As a result, if a woman attempts to break the mold of traditional gender roles, she is often singled out and stigmatized.

A right denied: The right to abortion in Guatemala

FCAM: What can you tell us about the situation in Guatemala with regard to abortion?

Partner Organization: Abortion is a highly polarizing issue: the law only allows therapeutic abortions to save the mother’s life, while the Constitution defines life as beginning at conception.

Guatemalan society is conservative, so there are strong movements that oppose decriminalizing it, especially in cases of rape. This prohibition violates [people’s] fundamental rights; it promotes unsafe abortions; and it penalizes victims of sexual violence.

Religious organizations oppose the decriminalization of abortion, regardless of whether the pregnancy was consensual or not.

Article 8 of the Guatemalan Constitution defines life as starting at conception. This is is reflected in Article 137 of the Penal Code, which establishes abortion as a crime, except if it’s a therapeutic abortion.

Data:

• In rural communities, women often seek health services for reasons related to pregnancy or childbirth.
• Adolescents and women in general are reluctant to seek sexual and reproductive health services because they fear being judged and having their information disclosed to the general public.

Therapeutic abortion: is it really accessible?

FCAM: Based on your experience in the communities, do girls and adolescents actually have access to therapeutic abortions for reasons of sexual violence or when their lives are at risk? Are they adequately informed about this option in health centers?

Copart: No, girls, adolescents, and women are unable to exercise this right because they are pressured by their families, religious leaders, and society.

They are told that they must prioritize the life of the unborn because they have already lived and are therefore obligated to give the unborn a chance at life.

Furthermore, most births are attended by a midwife in their community. Health providers inform family members of the risks, and it’s ultimately family members who decide whether or not to authorize the abortion.

Data:

• According to the Health System, 14,696 girls between 10 and 14 years old gave birth in Guatemala between 2018 and 2024.
• In rural communities in Guatemala, sexual and reproductive education is precarious. Talking about sexuality is a sin, which makes girls and adolescents more vulnerable than they already are.

Care route for victims of sexual violence

FCAM: What mechanisms exist to protect girls who are victims of sexual violence and ensure that perpetrators face legal consequences?

Copart: There is a Care Route for Victims of Sexual Violence, and institutions also have certain responsibilities.

The Route has 4 stops:

• The victim should seek help from a trusted person, a midwife, a mentor mother, an auxiliary public servant in city hall or pertinent authorities.
• The victim should go or be taken to the nearest hospital as soon as possible.
• In the hospital, you must require the use of the emergency kit to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.
• The incident must be reported to the National Civil Police, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, or the Court.

Hospitals, the National Institute of Forensic Sciences of Guatemala (INACIF), the National Civil Police, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Courts, and organizations that provide psychological, medical, and legal care also have obligations:

• Hospitals. They are obligated to treat the victim, notify INACIF and the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and deploy the emergency kit for cases of sexual violence.
• INACIF. Must be present when medical personnel treat the victim.
• National Civil Police. They must receive the complaint and arrest the aggressor.
• Public Prosecutor’s Office. As the investigating body, it must charge the assailant with the crime of rape.
• [Criminal] Court. It must judge and sentence the aggressor.
• Organizations that provide psychological, medical, and legal support. Unfortunately, this type of support is lacking in our territories because it is not guaranteed by the State, and although the Victim Assistance Institute exists, women feel unsafe, judged, and revictimized by this institution.

In Guatemala, this is the path that must be followed so that aggressors can face legal consequences.

Unfortunately, many girls, adolescents, and women don’t have trusted people in their communities and are afraid and ashamed to talk about what happened to them, so they choose to remain silent.

There is no information in our communities because topics related to sexuality remain taboo.

Where is the State?

In its article Guatemala Fails Girls Victims of Sexual Violence, Agencia Ocote states: “The Guatemalan penal code considers pregnancies in girls under 14 years of age to be rape with an aggravated penalty. However, the prosecution of this crime is not a priority for the justice system.”

Cases of sexual violence is not a priority, so survivors experience a lack of care, empathy, and respect throughout the entire process.

This becomes painfully evident when it comes to victims who don’t speak Spanish or who have hearing disabilities, for example. Despite their circumstances, the system doesn’t provide interpreters to meet their needs.

All of this is structural violence. A violence that is also fueled, strengthened, and sustained, among other things, by the power of fundamentalist groups (from the upper classes, with roots in Opus Dei), who manipulate the state and political party ecosystem through very specific strategies:

• Advocate in Congress and the courts to not only continue to ensure the criminalization of abortion, but also to intensify criminalization and toughen penalties.

• Ensure that Comprehensive Sexual Education, that is both science-based and secular, remains absent from the education system, promoting instead a religious and moralistic view of sexuality.

• Generate hate speech and misinformation, labeling abortion as murder and criminalizing those who perform or assist in its implementation, with a strong presence in traditional and social media.

This approach nullifies the rights of girls, adolescents, and women, and their lives are at the mercy of and dependent on the system, the state, and religion, ensuring that women fulfill a purely reproductive role, no matter the cost, because their lives—for the system—have no inherent value.