A 15-year-old girl sold into marriage at the age of 11 was jailed for 10 days in the Montaña region of Guerrero after she fled the home of her father-in-law who was sold for 120,000 pesos (US $5,800) in accordance with traditional customs in the municipality of Cochoapa el Grande went to live with her in-laws after her husband emigrated to the United States in search of work who claimed to be the girl’s “owner” because he bought her for his son allegedly tried to rape Angélica on four separate occasions prompting her to flee his home late last month The teenager took shelter with her grandmother but after her father-in-law demanded her arrest community police officers from the village of Dos Ríos arrived at the house and detained her The authorities also arrested the girl’s grandmother because she refused to pay 210,000 pesos demanded by the father-in-law they detained Angélica’s three little sisters — an eight-year-old and six-year-old twins her sisters and their grandmother were held for 10 days in a police lockup until they were released last weekend The newspaper El Universal reported that their arrest didn’t come to light until the girls’ mother reported it while receiving medical treatment last Saturday at a hospital in Ometepec a municipality about 100 kilometers from Cochoapa el Grande Concepción Ventura got into an argument with police after arriving at the lockup with food for her four daughters one of the officers reportedly punched Ventura After officials with the Guerrero Human Rights Commission and the Ministry of Indigenous and Afro-Mexican Affairs heard about the girls’ arrest they traveled to Dos Ríos to demand their release The former body announced Sunday that the girls had been freed Human rights and women’s rights organizations have denounced what happened to Angélica It is unclear what consequences the police will face for their actions and whether the girl’s father-in-law will face charges related to his alleged sexual assault The sale of adolescent girls for marriage is a common practice in Guerrero’s Montaña region and many young girls have suffered abuses at the hands of their husbands “It’s an old practice that we can’t eradicate even though the law says that the practice is a crime — human trafficking With reports from Reforma and El Universal  ADVERTISE WITH MND COMMUNITY GUIDELINES Subscription FAQ's Privacy Policy Mexico News Daily - Property of Tavana LLC half a dozen children crossed the main square on their way home from school in this dusty farming town of 2,600 people high in the pine-covered mountains of southern Mexico Their bellies ached from malnourishment and their arms were as skinny as those of children half their 8 or 9 years of age A few feet away a menu pinned to the wall of a government-run kitchen promised cookies But the kitchen was closed and the five large tables were empty with dozens of plastic chairs stacked against a wall Residents said it had only been operating sporadically since it opened with no explanation from the officials who were supposed to be running it More than a year after President Enrique Pena Nieto launched what he called a national crusade against hunger the government says 3 million Mexicans are eating better independent experts say that number is questionable and the crusade against hunger appears to be doing far less than advertised On visits to three of the community kitchens supposedly operating in Guerrero one of Mexico's poorest and most hunger-plagued states Associated Press reporters found not a single one in operation State officials said they had no knowledge of a fourth community kitchen in the city of Acapulco despite federal government claims that one had been set up Since independence more than two centuries ago Mexico has suffered from persistently high levels of poverty and economic inequality but Pena Nieto is the first president to focus so intently on hunger which his administration calls the most pressing problem facing the country's poorest citizens In the 400 poorest and most malnourished of the country's 2,400 municipalities the Pena Nieto administration has been trying to enroll more people in existing social programs such as Opportunities which provides a small monthly stipend to qualifying poor Mexicans The only completely new element of the program is the creation of government-run cafeterias known as community kitchens The United Nations defines a hungry person as someone who for at least a year is not able to eat enough to cover their basic energy needs The Mexican government has a much looser definition saying that a hungry person is anyone who is in extreme poverty and suffers from what it calls ''a lack of food.'' And the Mexican government acknowledges that for at least another year there will be no way to measure whether the program is actually addressing the problems of those it's supposed to benefit — 7 million Mexicans the government says are suffering from a combination of extreme poverty and malnourishment even as the country also suffers from among the world's highest rates of obesity ''Our task will be measuring the situation out in the field to verify that this is true,'' said Gonzalo Hernandez Licona head of the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy That hasn't stopped the government from claiming success ''After a year it's very encouraging to see and appreciate the progress are assured of better nutrition,'' Pena Nieto said in late January Critics say many of the government's claims about the crusade's success are based simply on the continued enrollment of Mexicans in programs that began under previous administrations Some of those enrollment figures have even been dropping raising further questions about the 3 million figure Critics also charge that the Pena Nieto government is claiming a dramatic achievement without real proof a preference for style over substance that spills over into a variety of areas ''There's been success in the sense of passing controversial legislative reforms but there haven't been any results yet,'' said Edna Jaime director of the think-tank Mexico Evaluates ''We aren't seeing any evidence that things are going better.'' The government says Guerrero was the first state to receive community kitchens to help the already poor state recover from the damage wreaked by Hurricane Manuel last year The kitchens are supposed to open from Monday to Friday and provide free food for breakfast and lunch no food was being prepared and no residents showed up all day in Cochoapa El Grande Another kitchen in the nearby village of San Miguel Amoltepec The federal secretary of social development says the administration also has installed two kitchens in the city of Acapulco A recent visit by an AP reporter found one out of service and state officials disavowed any knowledge of a second Officials and residents said the three kitchens seen by the AP had operated at some point said he occasionally sent some of his six children to the community kitchen in Cochoapa el Grande but kitchen employees demanded a fee of two or three pesos from each person a 20-minute drive away on a narrow dirt road said they were similarly asked to pay a small fee in cash or firewood Some said the kitchen had closed two days earlier after it ran out of food Much of the food is canned and shipped from major cities a practice experts and indigenous advocates called a missed opportunity to help local agriculture ''It's a charity model that in some ways perpetuates cycles of poverty,'' said Xaviera Cabada director of the nutritional food campaign for the group Consumer Power say social scientists such as Gerardo Esquivel such figures are a bad way of measuring whether people are actually being helped officials could measure the physical effects of nutrition weight and other indicators of proper diet program and resources dedicated to creating more people receiving aid.'' AP writer Jose Antonio Rivera in Acapulco contributed to this report Every day an average of 830 women worldwide die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth according to the World Health Organisation The high rate of maternal deaths in some areas of the world reflects the inequalities in access to health services and underlines the differences between rich and poor the maternal deaths occur in difficult surroundings and against a background of humanitarian crisis According to Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) the country’s Guerrero State has the worst recorded level of maternal mortality at 91 deaths for every 100,000 live births The organisation Kinal Antzetik Guerrero (The Land of Women is active in the municipalities of Ometepec and Cochoapa el Grande and the organisation’s legal representative visits the most deprived regions in the State to give women – mostly indigenous – information The aim is to eradicate maternal mortality and put an end to obstetric violence (by health centres) both a result of disinformation and women’s lack of knowledge about their rights a network of midwives and community organisers arranges visits and workshops for women in the area They tackle issues such as gender violence the importance of a woman taking charge of her own body and of realising that nobody else can take decisions for her The organisation visits and supports over 600 women a year in the La Montaña y Costa Chica regions (both in Guerrero) Most of the expectant mothers prefer to have their births overseen by midwives the women are referred to the health services provides care and support for the women before At the same time she teaches midwifery to other women so that the skill is not lost and can be passed on to future generations Hermelinda Tiburcio runs gender workshops on sexual and reproductive health workshops focused on the principle that it is the woman who decides how many children she shall have rather than the decision resulting from pressure imposed by the health services or the community and on ensuring that they have contraception to hand and know about contraceptive methods but it is important to have them further apart when we decide we want another That will also ensure we have time to do other things and to be more prepared” explains Hermelinda Kinal Antzetik Guerrero also works to develop a “culture of good treatment” to avoid violence within families wives and children are invited to attend the workshops so that everyone can become aware that a woman is not an object; that it is neither normal nor right at a woman be raped by a man The organisation believes it is essential for women to have access to new technology – to receive information and services – which is why it trains them in new technologies and makes computer classes available to them They also have legal support about their rights and to help them with complaints in their own language Amuzgo or Mixteco – with translation into Spanish Kinal Antzetik Guerrero seeks to ensure that women recognise and take ownership of their own bodies In this way they will know how to identify and report ill-treatment or the insertion of inter-uterine devices without their consent “I am aware that every day there is the possibility that I might die but I have decided to continue dreaming the same dream as many of my indigenous sisters who hope for a better Mexico where government institutions use public resources transparently where the institutions of justice are fair and impartial and who are dedicating their lives to their children and to the future generation To abandon the struggle would be to abandon my dream What would be the point of my escaping from poverty were to ignore what is happening in my country,” says Hermelinda who has suffered threats for the work she does to defend the rights of the women in her community Equal Times is a trilingual news and opinion website focusing on labour politics and the economy from a social justice perspective A teenage Mixtec girl was jailed in the Montaña region of Guerrero this week after fleeing her home to avoid an arranged marriage aged 14 or 15 according to differing media reports had arranged for her to marry a slightly older boy on Monday The girl’s mother agreed to a payment of 200,000 pesos (US $9,275) from the boy’s family who hosted a party Sunday to celebrate the imminent nuptials A cow was slain and cooked to feed the guests beer and soft drink flowed and a group of banda musicians provided entertainment The boy’s parents also provided food and beverages for a gathering at Anayeli’s home last Friday Everything was set for a Monday wedding but on the morning of the big day Anayeli slipped out of her home in Joya Real a community in the municipality of Cochoapa el Grande and went into hiding at the home of a friend Anayeli’s disappearance prompted her family and that of her would-be husband to go to the community police to seek their assistance to locate her Officers found the girl at Alfredo’s home and took both adolescents into custody According to the Montaña Tlachinollan Human Rights Center police told Anayeli she would only be released if she agreed to marry or her family compensated the boy’s family for the 56,000 pesos (US $2,600) it spent on the two pre-marriage events They said her disappearance on the day of the wedding had “offended” the boy’s family Anayeli and Alfredo spent Monday night behind bars but personnel from the human rights center and the Guerrero Attorney General’s Office as well as state police arrived at the Joya Real police station on Tuesday morning and secured their release The pair were subsequently placed in the custody of the DIF family services agency The state is investigating and community police the local police chief and the parents of Anayeli and her would-be husband could face charges related to the girl’s arrest and intended marriage The wedding didn’t take place and as a result the boy’s family didn’t make the 200,000-peso payment Neil Arias Vitinio, a lawyer with the human rights center, said that arranged – or forced – marriages involving young girls is a normalized practice in the Montaña region and for that reason many people were angered by Anayeli’s disappearance ‘Why did the girl do that if she already knows how things are here?’ [or] ‘She made a mockery of the [boy’s] family’ [or] ‘The girl accepted.’ But how can a girl have the capacity to take the decision to get married?” she asked Anayeli’s 14-hour incarceration came less than two months after a 15-year-old girl was held in a police lockup in Cochoapa el Grande for 10 days after fleeing the home of her father-in-law who allegedly attempted to rape her on repeated occasions Angélica was sold into marriage at the age of 11 but went to live with her in-laws after her husband emigrated to the United States The federal government’s women’s rights agency launched a strategy earlier this month to prevent violence against women and girls in the Montaña and Costa Chica regions of Guerrero and put an end to forced marriages But according to Arias Vitinio there is no concrete plan nor sufficient funding to stop the violence and forced marriage problems “Signing an agreement isn’t sufficient It’s necessary to go to the communities and speak with the people we have to explain to them that marrying off girls and boys has consequences,” the lawyer said People below the age of 18 were banned from marrying across Mexico in 2019 but the sale of young girls into marriage continues to take place in some indigenous communities especially in southern states such as Guerrero and Oaxaca During a trip to the Montaña region last month President López Obrador rejected claims that the practice was widespread asserting that a media campaign had made the sale of girls for marriage or prostitution appear to be a bigger problem than it really is “I’m not here to look at that because it’s not the rule,” he said cultural and spiritual values in the communities The Network for Children’s Rights in Mexico promptly condemned the federal government for downplaying the seriousness of Mexico’s child trafficking problem saying it is a crime that the Mexican state must investigate and eradicate With reports from El Universal and Reforma  Connecting decision makers to a dynamic network of information Bloomberg quickly and accurately delivers business and financial information the inspiration for the award winning Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios animated film Coco a tradition observed throughout Mexico to honor dead loved ones traces roots back hundreds of years to the country’s indigenous population. During the holiday the celebrations center around the belief that those living are being reunited with departed family members The practices and importance of the holiday vary among regions but the vibrant tradition remains especially strong in remote towns far from the bustle of the big cities Bloomberg News photographers César Rodríguez and Mauricio Palos captured rarely seen local traditions in the towns of San Luis Potosi and Guerrero states leaving thousands of local residents to come together to celebrate life death, tradition and love.     If there’s one thing I’ve learned from deportees Being handcuffed and forcibly returned to Mexico be it through a border door or a plane deeper into the country Few are treated with respect and many are treated inhumanely but over the years I’ve spent covering the plight of returning migrants the vast majority have the same attitude: “Fair enough whom I met in Guadalajara earlier this month the most impoverished municipality in Mexico a two-hour drive up into the pine-jungled hills above Tlapa the asphalt comes to an end and the bright orange dirt road cut at a right angle out of the hillside and furrowed by the streams of these sierras’ constant drizzle takes you to the arches at the entrance to the town It looks much like any other town in this area Adobe walls where the rock plaster has been chipped away The colorful bubble-lettered graffiti promoting the visit of a music band two months ago lined with topiarized square bushes and the see-through glass box containing jicama Below the town there’s an enormous social housing development One hundred identical houses built by a federal government stand in eight identical lines You can see children running in between them It’s because the town itself is underpopulated What good’s a roof over your head if there’s no work outside your door Cochoapa El Grande is impoverished for a reason: it’s two hours up a dirt road from Tlapa but profits are eaten up just getting the product to the commercial center and damages the peaches (the main crop) along the way “Wouldn’t the housing money have been better spent on putting a proper road in?” I ask a local Cochoapa El Grande is struggling even more clandestine opium poppy production has for a long time been a major source of income The opium fields produce at least two harvests a year: the wet season and the dry season and when I first covered the industry four years ago But Fentanyl – synthesized opium – a hundred times stronger and far easier to produce “A kilo of dry season gum is at $250 now,” he told me It was only at a Tucson McDonald’s that he got unlucky A cop stood beside him in the line and watched his unusually ravenous hunger with suspicion when his quarter-pounder arrived He was sent to Guadalajara for that reason To get him a thousand kilometers from the border makes it harder to get back because other people have done it,” he said Alasdair Baverstock is a freelance foreign correspondent and reporter for CGTN who has covered Mexico and Latin America for nearly a decade You can follow him across social media at @alibaverstock Indigenous women from the Montaña region of Guerrero have accused authorities at all three levels of government of abandoning them and claim they were better off when former president Enrique Peña Nieto was in office a municipality where the practice of selling young girls into marriage is common traveled to the state capital Chilpancingo to denounce the lack of support from authorities particularly in the areas of health and children’s welfare Members of the Defensoras de Niñas (Defenders of Girls) collective also said that their communities have been stigmatized by the media and authorities because girls continue to be married off for cash The authorities haven’t taken the necessary steps to eradicate the problem at its root a spokeswoman and interpreter for the collective told a press conference that brigades of health workers traveled to communities in Cochoapa el Grande at least once a month during the 2012–18 government of Peña Nieto That allowed local people to obtain medical treatment explaining that residents don’t have the money to travel to hospitals and clinics outside the municipality “Now we’re completely abandoned,” García said There is a lack of both doctors and medications in Cochoapa el Grande “… People die from a scorpion sting because there’s no way to treat them,” she said Since the current federal government took office “There’s no medical brigade that visits the towns to provide care to pregnant women There’s nothing [in the way of medical care] in the communities García also said that the current government has made welfare payments to mothers contingent on their children being enrolled in school so unfortunately that support doesn’t arrive,” she said “The benefits reach a few communities where there are schools nearby but they don’t get to everyone who needs them,” García said In addition to calling for the resumption of visits by medical brigades the Mixtec women urged federal and state authorities to dispatch officials to help seniors enroll in welfare programs “People don’t know how to fill out the forms or where to get some of the things they need There’s nobody to guide them; that’s the case with seniors,” García said “We want the members of [President López Obrador’s] cabinet … to set foot on that land [Cochoapa el Grande] We want people to translate so that the officials know how to deal with them because there are a lot of people who don’t speak Spanish,” she said García and the other women said the practice of selling girls can be combatted through education and programs that ensure families have enough to eat Child marriage in Mexico is most common in poor southern states such as Guerrero where parents might see the sale of their daughter as a means to alleviate poverty García expressed doubt that a recently-announced federal, state and municipal strategy to prevent violence against women and girls in the Montaña and Costa Chica regions of Guerrero and put an end to forced and arranged marriages will succeed in the short term she said before calling for its details to be disseminated García also urged Guerrero Governor Evelyn Salgado to visit the region and observe the conditions in which people live hundreds of families live in extreme poverty without food security and education that would allow them to find work opportunities outside the municipality The director of the Montaña Tlachinollan Human Rights Center said agreements have been reached for at least four marriages involving minors to occur since the November 10 announcement of the anti-violence strategy Abel Barrera Hernández also said that authorities have failed to properly look after two teenage girls who were recently jailed in Cochoapa el Grande, one after fleeing her home to avoid an arranged marriage and the other after running away from the home of her father-in-law “They’re adrift; it’s not known if they’ll be able to return to their towns or whether they’ll be directed into a program … [to help them] rebuild their lives,” he said adding that both girls are currently displaced With reports from Milenio In Mexico’s 15 poorest municipalities – located in three southern states with large indigenous populations — more than 98% of the population lives in poverty A report published by national social development agency Coneval on Wednesday shows that eight of those municipalities are in Oaxaca The poorest municipality in 2020 was San Simón Zahuatlán, Oaxaca, where 99.6% of residents live in poverty. In 2019, human development in the municipality, located in the state’s Mixteca region, was comparable to that in Yemen, the United Nations said in a report The second poorest municipality was Cochoapa el Grande, Guerrero, where the practice of selling young girls into marriage to alleviate poverty is common 99.4% of residents in the Montaña region municipality live in poverty The other 13 municipalities with poverty rates above 98% were San Juan Cancuc – were also among the 15 poorest municipalities in the country in 2010 and 2015 A person is considered to be living in poverty if their income is below Coneval’s poverty threshold – currently 3,898 pesos (US $187) per month in urban areas and 2,762 pesos (US $133) in rural areas – and they present at least one social deficiency out of six among which are poor access to adequate nutrition A person is considered to be living in extreme poverty if their income is below 1,850 pesos per month in urban areas and 1,457 pesos in rural areas and they present at least three social deficiencies The 15 municipalities with the highest extreme poverty rates are also located in Oaxaca Santiago Amoltepec ranked first in that category with 84.4% of residents living in extreme poverty Coneval also identified the municipalities with the highest number of residents living in poverty and extreme poverty last year headed the former list with almost 817,000 impoverished people Five other municipalities had more than half a million poor people in 2020, when poverty levels rose due to the pandemic had the highest number of people living in extreme poverty – more than 126,000 – while León also had more than 100,000 extremely poor residents Coneval said that half of all Mexicans not considered poor live in just 46 urban municipalities located mainly in the country’s central and northern states an affluent municipality in the metropolitan area of Monterrey had the lowest poverty rate in the country in 2020 with just 5.5% of residents considered poor Human development there in 2019 was comparable to that in France Eleven of the 15 municipalities with the lowest poverty rates last year – all 11% or lower – are in Nuevo León The four other municipalities among the 15 with the lowest poverty rates last year are Benito Juárez A report published earlier this month said that Mexico is one of the most unequal countries in the world The top 10% of income earners in Mexico earn over 30 times more than the bottom 50%