Costa Rica has been hosting since November 8 the Latin American Congress for Equal Marriage, the event comes to an end today, it is the first event of its kind in the region.

HDuarte-Lex, Igualitos Foundation, Citizen Asociation (ACCEDER) and the Costa Rican Association of International Law are the organizers of this event that was celebrated with the objective of opening a legal and constitutional discussion regarding sexual orientation discrimination.

“We made reference to a legal debate regarding the unequal non-justified treatment of same-sex couples when it comes to the access to a legal concept such as marriage, in the Latin American region”, explained Larissa Arroyo, director of ACCEDER.

The event has had the participation of more than 40 experts and activists from different areas in the region, including Evan Wolfson, founder of Freedom to Marry and pioneer of the equal marriage movement in the United States, considered as one of the top 100 most influential lawyers in America by the National Law Journal and one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine.

In Costa Rica, there is a bill that has yet to be approved regarding “cohabitation societies” which has the purpose of legalizing civil unions between same-sex couples. This will grant them rights to inheritance, mutual financing, visits to hospitals and prisons, among others.

Even though there is still a long road ahead before same-sex marriage is permitted in the country, the country has taken some steps towards the recognition of the rights of the LGBTI population. For instance, the modification to the internal regulations of the Social Security Service (C.C.S.S.) to ensure that the homosexual population has the possibility of requesting health coverage for their life partner, it would also give them the right to widow pension.