In the first half of this year, seven girls aged between 10 and 14 gave birth in Guatemala every single day.
Guatemalan law states that these 1,298 girls are the victims of sexual violence. Medical professionals say their pregnancies pose a high risk to their physical and mental health. But the Asociación la Familia Importa (AFI), Guatemala’s most influential anti-abortion organisation, has focused on preventing such girls from having abortions at any cost – and it is succeeding.
Since its inception in 2013, the AFI, a non-profit whose name translates as the Family Matters Association, has quickly grown into a well-resourced organisation with an outsized, but stealthy, impact on most Guatemalans’ lives, health and rights. Its influence has spread through the country’s Congress, the government and the wider human rights movement across the Americas.
