Guatemala has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in Latin America. Government statistics recorded more than 5,000 pregnancies by girls under 14 in 2014 and one quarter of Guatemalan children were born to adolescent mothers in the last five years.
Many girls and women in the central American country have unwanted pregnancies due to a lack of information about sex and their own bodies and endemic violence, according to Abriendo Oportunidades (Opening Opportunities), which works to provide skills and support to venerable Mayans girls in Guatemala.
One of the foundation's workers, Marta Alicia Caz Macz said: "Mothers are not informed, and mothers feel ashamed that they cannot even tell the names of the body parts."
Volunteers within the charity attributed the ignorance about reproduction to traditional Christian teachings, where girls learn that talk of sex is shameful or forbidden.
The mentoring program reports mothers also struggle to tell daughters about their menstrual cycle, and the secrecy is made worse because so many pregnancies are caused by sexual violence within families.
Official statistics also reveal that in four out of five cases of pregnancies in girls under 14, the offender was a close relative such as a father, uncle or grandparent.
Sex education is currently taught in Guatemala schools but campaigners say it is often incomplete or irrelevant, as less than half the girls in Guatemala attend secondary schools.
The United Nation's Population fund states on its website that: "When a girl becomes pregnant, her life can change radically. Her education may end and her job prospects diminish. She becomes more vulnerable to poverty and exclusion, and her health often suffers."
