Why Child Marriage Persists In Mexico
In Mexico, 1 in 5 girls marry before they're 18 — some as young as 11. Unlike the rest of the world, child marriage rates have barely fallen in the last 30 years.
A dozen young women sit in a stuffy, gnat-filled room in a community center in Coatecas Altas, part of Mexico's Oaxaca state.
At first they're shy. But it doesn't take long for them to start talking about the pressures they face to marry at a young age.
"People will come up to me in the street and ask how old I am, and then they'll tell me I'm getting old," says Yolanda De la Cruz, 21.
Child marriage was banned in Mexico in 2014, but according to researchers.
And while rates of child marriage around the world have fallen in recent decades, the numbers in Mexico haven't moved much.
