Honduras is currently the country with the highest murder rate in the world. More than 20 people are killed daily by firearms in this Central American country. One of the main causes of this structural violence is definitely family breakdown.
Most of honduran moms and grandmothers, with low economic resources, must go ahead with lots of children and with the absence of the father figure and its respective eco- nomic contribution. One of the rising factor within the family breakdown structure is teen pregnancy.
Only in the year 2012 more than 50,000 teenage girls became pregnant in Honduras. According to the report State of the World Population, conducted by the United Nations, Honduras is the second Latin American country with the highest rate of teenage pregnancies, after Nicaragua and second only to sub-Saharan Africa. Official data show that in Honduras 22 of every 100 pregnancies are adolescents, a value which increases year after year.
In the Hospital Escuela in Tegucigalpa, which receives daily lot of pregnant teens are girls between 12 and 18 years, 34% of the deliveries are from teenagers. In the health center Suaso Alonso, another hospital in the capital, Dr. Philippe Reyes hits daily a dozen of ultrasounds to pregnant girls.
According to the United Nations Population Fund teen pregnancy is not related to responsive to decisions of young women but to the lack of opportunities, social, cultural, eco- nomic pressures, and the context in which they live. In that sense the girls under 18 with low income, living in rural areas and with less educational background are more likely to become pregnant than others.
Among the main causes of teenage pregnancy also include lack of family planning, lack of access to contraception, banning emergency contraception, sexual stimuli present in the media, the prevailing sexism in the underlying patriarchal culture and the alarming rates of intrafamily violations (by the father or the partner of her moms) who suffer the region.
Young mums live pregnancy as a break from the transition between childhood and adulthood. His early pregnancy carries negative connotations and is accompanied by feelings of guilt, rejection and lack of connection with the newborn. Many teen moms usually drop out her studies after delivery and it has an impact on future economic condition of both mom and baby.
This common inertia in Honduran families creates a vicious circle difficult to change: Young mothers with no father figure and economically disadvantaged give birth during adolescence to young potential mothers who in will grow without a father figure and limited economic resources.
Male youngsters generally are not responsible for the child after conception and the majority of children and young mothers end up being supported by grandmothers who definitely are a pillar of the family structure in Honduras.
For the current Honduran society, marked by violence and hopelessness, teen pregnancy remains as an obstacle to their emancipation. This photo project and wants to give light and consciousness to this problem and point to its possible causes.