Over the years, Guatemala has been viewed as one of the largest sources of human trafficking all over the world. The victims are mostly women and young girls, who still face discrimination in their country. Poverty is said to be one of the main reasons behind the trafficking problems plaguing the country. A new law seeks to remedy that. 

Discrimination against women has been an issue for years in Guatemala. It was reported by Guttmacher that almost three in ten young girls are sexually active by as early as fifteen. Most of these young girls live in the rural areas of the country and have no access to education or reproductive health care. The Central American country has also presented violent levels of violence against women, the data said.

Mail order brides for Guatemalan women and young girls have become a common trend. Trust.org shows that there is a extremely high rate of femicide in the country, following El Salvador and Jamaica. Even as many women have stood up to make their presence known in the country against these injustices, many of these woman activists face dangers such as illegal arrests and violence. 

According to HNGN, a new law seeks to lessen the number of human trafficking incidents in the country. Many of the young girls and women who have gone missing are often left unaccounted for. 

The reports say that when a woman or young girl is reported missing in Guatemala, she is often presumed to have "run off with her boyfriend." However, the majority of these women and girls who have gone missing are often lured out of their villages by seedy individuals under the guise of being offered work. Many of these women and young girls are forced into domestic servitude or prostitution. 

The report says that the new law requires instant action from the authorities to immediately search for the missing women. Congresswoman Sandra Mora said that the law seeks to significantly reduce the incidence of human trafficking in the country. She added that she believes that immediate action by the authorities will mean saving a woman's life. 

Mora added that when the law is taken into effect, the old explaination of girls "running away with their boyfriends will have to change." 

The law, which was voted by 89 out of 158 Congress deputies, seeks to challenge deep seated military influences in the country. Because of poverty and a lack of education, many girls as young as age ten are impregnated, often by their close relatives reports The Tico Times. 

According to Guatemalan statistics, over 4,500 women and young girls have disappeared in the past two years and are believed to have been victims of the slave trade.