 | | IDENTITY
"I get discriminated against when I wear my traditional costume"
Edith is a Mazahua Indian. She lives in a slum in Mexico City but dreams about leaving it and finding better housing.
Originally Mazahuas come from the state of Mexico, near the capital. Edith is proud of her cultural heritage and enjoys wearing her traditional community costume, the Mazahua dress. In doing so, however, she feels people humiliate her.
Under Article 30 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, children have a right to express their cultural identity.
The article states, "... a child belonging to such a minority or who is indigenous shall not be denied the right... to enjoy his or her own culture, to profess and practise his or her own religion, or to use his or her own language."
This is Edith's story: | |  Listen to Edith's story in Spanish | | 
My name is Edith. I'm seven years old. I was born in Mexico City.
This dress that I'm wearing is my community costume, the Mazahua dress. I like to dress like this but I have suffered discrimination when I'm wearing this costume. I also was discriminated against by blonde people because my skin is a bit black.
I don't like to be discriminated. I don't like people telling me bad things.
I go to a school and I'm in the second year.
I like the town where my parents come from but people in the city have more things than the people in the pueblo. They have more roads, hospitals and schools.
I have two sisters: Jessica and Jaqueline. We live in an old building in a slum, where one doesn't have any comforts.
We live in a room, all of us. We sleep in bunk beds; me and my sister in the upper bed and my parents and older sister in the lower bed.
There are other children in my neighbourhood that live better than me, they got all sorts of things, like sweets and lollipops, and they have pretty houses.
My dad sells sweets in the streets and my mom sells tacos [Mexico's variety of corn pancakes.] My parents work hard because we want to have a bigger house, with a room for myself and another room for my parents.
My grandmother and aunts take care of me while my parents are working. They return late at night but I like them working because I want to be like the other children, the children that have pretty houses.  | | | Listen to Edith's story in Spanish | | |  |  |
 There are about 17,000 Mazahuas living in Mexico City alone and, according to official figures, a total of 120,000 residing in the country.
In the capital, the Mazahuas are poor and marginalised. Many of them make a living as vendors, selling all kinds of goods on the streets. Edith's parents are no different. Her father sells sweets while her mother sells corn pancakes.
The Mazahuas are one of Mexico's 62 ethnic groups. They wear traditional costumes - skirts and blouses in very bright colours.
Many speak their own indigenous language as well as Spanish.
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