In push to end child marriage in Guatemala, young women are on the front line
In this remote village perched high in the hills of eastern Guatemala, a spunky 21-year-old in high-tops and skinny black jeans is holding court in a former coffee-processing plant.
In front of Patricia Rossibel Cortéz Jiménez are dozens of girls, ages 8 to 18, who whisper and swing their feet beneath plastic chairs as she opens a weekly training with a question: “What is gender?”
The cavernous, cinder-block space grows quiet. Finally, one girl answers: “The difference between a man and a woman.”
“It’s also the role family and community assign to people,” says Ms. Jiménez, a mentor who runs weekly gatherings here for the youth organization Colectivo Joven.
She breaks the girls into two groups and asks them to write out
Backed up by the lawReal challenge: root causes'The key is critical mass'