Paola Moncada, 14, is pregnant with her second child; she had wanted to be a lawyer but dropped out of school in the fifth grade when she became pregnant with her first child. She says that she became pregnant because she could no longer afford birth control pills, and other forms of contraception are largely unavailable. Paola’s grandmother moved from Italy to Venezuela in 1957 because at that time it seemed a more promising country in which to live. Now Paola says she hopes her children grow up somewhere other than Venezuela.

Paola’s son, Jhosander, is almost 2 years old and faces an uncertain future. The family once supported the socialism of President Hugo Chávez, but Paola’s stepfather now dismisses socialism as “garbage.”