By Lisa Cisneros –

Mayra Qunitero, 23, is a single mother of two who knows all too well how the silence surrounding sex education in the Latino community can impact a future.  Quintero became a mother at 15.  She had planned on having an abortion but was talked out of it. Her child’s father was 25.

“Sex was never spoken about in my house. My parents knew I was messing around. They didn’t do anything about it,” Quintero said. “It was never brought up. It was out of the question to even mention sex.”

She said she wants “to break the cycle” and will definitely speak teach her children about sex education. She has already begun with her little girl.

Because of the lack of proper sex education, 56 percent of Latinas find themselves with unwanted pregnancies and limited knowledge of options available to them. Cultural taboos, religion, social acceptance and lack of communication with partners and parents are all contributing factors.

This is why groups like Chicago-based Mujeres Latinas en Accion have developed programs like Mother & Daughter Leadership to addresses the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that surrounds Latina reproductive rights.

Mother & Daughter Leadership is one of many free counseling services that Mujeres Latinas en Accion provides to women in the Pilsen neighborhood. Leadership advocate Ana Soto, 27, helps to coordinate and acts as counselor to the mothers and daughters who take advantage of the 15-week-program.  The program focuses on self-esteem, education, goals and communication skills with three weeks spent on sexuality, sex education and reproductive rights.

“The women come here and have two hours that they don’t have at home, because of children and chores, to talk among themselves and open up” Soto said.  “At first the teenagers are shy but sexuality is the topic that opens them up.”

“First we teach them about sexual orientation, because the community is so closed minded about it” Soto said. “Then we talk about sexual intercourse, what is it? What do they know already? Then we move onto birth control, how we can prevent pregnancy and STD’s?”

The Chicago Family Planning Organization said that Latinas are twice as likely as non-Latinas to experience an unwanted adolescent pregnancy.

Soto said the program also teaches about culture, religion and machismo. “How does society see you? How does our religion shape how many children we are supposed to have?” Soto said.  “We’re here to make the girls question these ideas. Where did they come from? How and why do they apply to me? We talk about abstinence too, but it’s proven the less you talk about sex the more they will they look to find out in other ways. Then we talk about reproductive rights and justice.”

Soto said a large part of the sexuality session is making sure the girls know that it is their legal right to obtain an abortion and that they do not need parental consent to do so.  Some of the mother’s are upset by this but Soto warns them about the worst circumstances of self-inducing.

Take the case of Amber Ambreu, 18. She is a Dominican immigrant living in Massachusetts faces up to 7 years in prison if convicted in the involuntary manslaughter of her daughter this year. Ambreau was 25 weeks pregnant when she took the ulcer drug Misoprotol to induce an abortion at home. She was admitted to the hospital the next day where she gave birth to a 1.5 pound baby girl who died four days later.

Latina abortion rates have reached an all time high. The Guttmacher Institute reports that 28 of every 1,000 Latinas will have an abortion. The rate is higher for black women at 50 of every 1,000 women and lower for white women with 11 out of every 1,000.

“I’ve heard of people doing crunches and crazy abdominal workouts and throwing themselves down the stairs,” Maxine Vazquez, 31, said about inducing abortions.

Vazquez, who is not part of the program, is a married mother of one who knows all about machismo and religious taboos from growing up in a Mexican household. “It doesn’t matter how open your mother is with you, you’re father rules the roost,” she said.

Mothers are encouraged to open up and speak of their own experiences with pregnancy and sex education within the program. Many are embarrassed because they were never taught and say that the only choices they were left with were marriage or being dishonored by their families.

Vazquez speaks of her young aunt in Mexico, who only a few years ago, became ostracized by her family after she became pregnant as an unmarried woman. “Her brothers kept beating the guy up until they scared him away. Now she’s stuck with her family, no one will marry her and they call her a whore and ignore her child. It’s frighteningly traditional,” she said.

Vazquez had an abortion when she was 19. She never told her parents.

“Thank God I was out of the house by then. If I was a teenager, I would have killed myself or found some way to have an abortion, self-induced or not, before I would ever tell my father. I’m completely serious. I’d be dead first,” she said.