Teen Pregnancy and Motherhood Among Afro-Descendant Girls and Adolescents in Mexico (2020-25), Digi Mart USA News (Mexico): Under Article 50 of Mexico’s General Law on the Rights of Girls, Boys and Adolescents (LGDNNA), authorities must prevent pregnancy among girls and adolescents through coordination. When it occurs, authorities must coordinate to provide respectful, effective and comprehensive medical care during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period.
Article 57 of the same law requires authorities to establish affirmative actions that guarantee pregnant girls and adolescents can access and remain in the national education system, facilitating their re-entry and promoting their completion of schooling. The question is how many Afro-descendant girls and women may need these forms of support in the country.
According to data from the 2025 Intercensal Survey published by INEGI, about 1.9 thousand Afro-descendant women aged 12 to 17 were mothers in 2025. This corresponded to 2.2% of Afro-descendant women in this age range, a figure 0.7 percentage points higher than the national rate for women of the same age who were mothers (1.5%).
In 2025, the states with the highest percentage of Afro-descendant women aged 12 to 17 who had children were Chiapas, Quintana Roo and Michoacán. In those states, more than one in every 21 Afro-descendant women in this age range were teen mothers.
Chiapas and Michoacán also ranked among the three states with the highest percentage of Afro-descendant women aged 12 to 17 who were married or in a union at the same date.
In terms of the number of Afro-descendant teen mothers aged 12 to 17, the states with the largest totals were Guerrero, Quintana Roo and Oaxaca. These three states were home to two of every five Afro-descendant teen mothers in the country.
In 2025, one in every 500 Afro-descendant women aged 12 to 14 nationwide was a mother (0.2%). That same year, one in every 24 Afro-descendant women aged 15 to 17 had at least one child nationally (4.2%).
In some states, however, the proportion was notably higher: in Chiapas, for example, one in every nine Afro-descendant women aged 15 to 17 was a teen mother (11.4%).
A trend from 2020 to 2025 shows that the percentage of Afro-descendant adolescent women who had been mothers fell nationally by 0.5 percentage points, from 2.7% to 2.2%. This was mainly due to a reduction in teen motherhood among Afro-descendant women aged 15 to 17, where the percentage dropped by 0.9 percentage points, from 5.1% to 4.2%.
However, during the same period, teen motherhood among all adolescent women in the country declined to a greater degree. As a result, the gap in teen motherhood between Afro-descendant women aged 12 to 17 and the total female population of the same age widened from 0.3 points in 2020 to 0.7 points in 2025.
This difference is most notable among women aged 15 to 17, where the gap between the Afro-descendant population and the total population grew from 0.5 points to 1.3 points over the same years.
The Network for the Rights of Children in Mexico (REDIM) conducts policy advocacy to encourage the Mexican State to take measures guaranteeing the rights of Afro-descendant girls, boys and adolescents. Its activities include monitoring whether the Observations issued to the Mexican State by the Committee on the Rights of the Child are implemented.
The organization publishes these materials and recommendations to disseminate them. Those who wish to support its efforts may follow its social media channels.
Source: INEGI, 2025 Intercensal Survey and 2020 Census.
