Civil unions in Uruguay
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On January 1, 2008, Uruguay became the first Latin American country to have a national civil union law.
Following the approval of a bill proposed by Senator Margarita Percovich of the Broad Front coalition in November 2007, both same-sex and opposite-sex couples will be allowed to enter into a civil union after they live together for at least five years, and will be entitled to some of the benefits that married couples are afforded.
The bill was passed in Congress on 30 November 2007 after having been passed in a similar form in the Senate earlier in February 2007; the bill was passed by both chambers in the same form on December 19 [1] and signed into law by president Tabare Vazquez on December 27. [2] It came into effect on 1 January 2008.[3]
A government-backed bill allowing same-sex couples to adopt children was discussed in the national parliament in the spring of 2008.[4]