page_title: Human rights in Costa Rica
section_title: LGBT Rights
hierarchical_section_title: Human rights in Costa Rica / Key Areas of Human Rights / LGBT Rights
caption_attribution_description: 日本語: ノーベル平和賞受賞のオスカル・アリアス・サンチェス
context_page_description: Costa Rica is often considered one of the best countries in Latin America at upholding Human Rights. It has been involved in the creation of international rights standards. Costa Rica is signatory to, and has ratified, many international treaties regarding rights, including the 1948 United Nations Declaration on Human Rights. Costa Rica scored above the world mean for human rights, achieving top global rankings. Its poverty levels sit at 18.6%, one of the lowest in the Latin American regions. Human rights in Costa Rica predominantly stem from the UNDHR, the Costa Rican Constitution and the Inter-American Human Rights System.
  Women's, children's and refugee's rights are all upheld in Costa Rica. LGBT rights have improved substantially over recent years.
context_section_description: Advances in LGBT rights in the past few decades in Costa Rica have been met with significant contention. Whilst homosexuality was decriminalised in the 19th Century, discrimination against homosexuals, a legal practice, remains prevalent. This can in part be attributed to the continued influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Costa Rica, citizens more socially conservative.
  Historically, LGBT rights have been negligible. Police harassment and raids on LGBT people in both public and private properties were frequent. Discrimination in the professional sphere was also prominent, many being fired or abused for their sexual identity. AIDS healthcare remains minimal due to surrounding stigma. This is reinforced by the 1999 national opinion poll which found 80% of Costa Ricans who responded believed homosexuality was “never justifiable”.
  In 1990 Government Minister Desanti placed a ban on foreign women travelling alone, with short hair or wearing pants, from entering Costa Rica, in case they were there to participate in a national meeting of Lesbians, known as “Encuentro”; it was not until the late 1990s that the Costa Rican Supreme Court ruled that the right of LGBT people to peaceful assembly was outlined in the constitution.
  Other examples of discrimination include Luis Fishman banning individuals identifying as LGBT as serving on the police force in 1993. In the late 1990s LGBT tourists to Costa Rica were labelled as predatory sex tourists who were not welcome in the country by Eduardo Leon-Paez. In 2007, Mario Nunez proposed a bill to ban LGBT people and same-sex couples from having custody of children. The bill did not pass. In 2008, the Supreme Court prohibited gay individuals from visiting their spouses in prison, the ruling reversed in 2011. The first LGBT pride march took place in 2004, met with much resistance.
  Despite this resistance, since 2010 there has been significant improvements in LGBT rights, largely facilitated by lawyer Yashin Castrillo in 2013 when he was prohibited from marrying his partner. Castrillo contested this greatly, bringing the issue into the limelight, predominantly through his claims that the Family Codes, which prevent same-sex couples from marrying, violate Articles 28, 33 and 39 of the Costa Rican Constitution. However, when put to the Constitutional Court in 2006, Sala IV maintained the prohibition. In 2010, the LGBT community gained political representation with the election of federal deputy Carmen Munoz, facilitating the improvement of legal LGBT rights. In 2018, Costa Rica's Supreme Court ruled that the ban on same-sex marriage violated the rights of LGBT individuals, being discriminatory and unconstitutional. As a result, gay marriage is set to be legal no later than 26 May 2020. This legalisation may also be attributed to the IACHR stance, exposed in 2016, which placed emphasis on the importance of LGBT rights, particularly marriage rights.
caption: Oscar Arias Sanchez, president of Costa Rica from 1986-1990 and 2006-2010
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