Two Bolivian women have become the first same-sex couple to legally marry in the South American nation after winning a four-year legal battle through the courts.
Fabiana Justiniano, a psychologist, and Scarlett Rocha, a neuroscientist, met through mutual friends in Santa Cruz in early 2022.
Both women had always felt that marriage was important to them, while Rocha is also a Bolivian-American dual citizen and felt that it was important that their relationship should be recognised if they moved overseas.
“We wanted to fight for marriage because it had always been part of our life plan,” Rocha told The Associated Press.
Constitution defines marriage between man and woman
Bolivia has allowed same-sex couples to be recognised as being in de facto relationships on the same basis as opposite sex couples since 2023.
However, people in de facto relationships often have to turn to the courts to assert legal rights and obligations that would be a given for married couples.
Bolivia has defined marriage in its Constitution as only being between a man and a woman since 2009 despite many of its neighbours already achieving marriage equality.
But its Constitution also states that international treaties that Bolivia is a party to, particularly relating to human rights, supersede Bolivia’s national laws.
Knowing this, the couple applied for a marriage licence in Santa Cruz and were rejected as they expected.
They then took the government to court, citing a legal opinion from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that said all countries in the Americas should offer same-sex couples all of the legal protections afforded to heterosexual couples, including marriage rights.
Their case eventually wound its way to a constitutional tribunal in Bolivia’s capital La Paz, where a judge finally ruled in their favour in March.
That court ordered the civil registry to issue the couple a marriage licence within ten days.
Instead, it took five months. But Rocha and Justiniano finally got married in Santa Cruz on August 7.
Door now open to others
This does not mean that marriage equality has now been achieved for everyone in Bolivia. Bolivia’s Constitutional Court still needs to review the decision.
But Rocha and Justiniano remain hopeful that they have set a legal precedent that will open the door to all gay and lesbian couples being able to marry in Bolivia.
“This process may have begun about us, but in the end, it’s about rights,” Rocha said. “It’s about people protecting their love.”
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