Human Rights Watch map reveals the state of marriage equality worldwide
A new interactive map has been released which provides an overview of countries with same-sex marriage equality, civil unions or registered partnerships worldwide.
Human Rights Watch launched the resource in celebration of pride month – which commemorates the Stonewall uprising of June 1969, when LGBT people protested against unfair treatment in New York.
The map provides detailed information on which path countries took to achieve marriage equality or to provide same-sex civil unions, and it will be updated as legal situations in countries change.
The interactive map can be viewed on the Human Rights Watch website (Credit: HRW)
In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country to open civil marriage to same-sex couples. Other countries followed. Now there are 25 countries that have equal marriage and Austria, Taiwan and Chile are expected to join the list soon.
The map is accompanied by information on the state of marriage equality. It reads: “An additional sixteen countries have made civil unions or registered partnerships available for same-sex couples.
“In some cases, civil unions or registered partnership provide all the same rights and responsibilities of civil marriage and differ in name only; countries with such laws include Croatia, Greece, Slovenia and Switzerland. In other cases, civil unions provide some, but not all, of these rights.”
(Photo: FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/GettyImages)
In England and Wales the Same Sex Couples Act was passed in 2013, which allows same-sex marriages to take place. The first same sex marriages took place on 29 March 2014.
In June the British royal family announced plans for its first same-sex marriage. Lord Ivar Mountbatten will marry James Coyle, his partner of two years, in the monarchy’s first-ever same-sex wedding later this summer.
