Marshall Islands
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The Marshall Islands, officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), is a Micronesian nation of atolls and islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just west of the International Date Line and just north of the Equator. This nation of roughly 62,000 persons is located north of Nauru and Kiribati, east of the Federated States of Micronesia, and south of the U.S. territory of Wake Island, to which it lays claim.

From 1946 to 1958, as the site of the Pacific Proving Grounds, the U.S. tested 66 nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands including the largest nuclear test the U.S. ever conducted, Castle Bravo. In 1956, the Atomic Energy Commission regarded the Marshall Islands as "by far the most contaminated place in the world." Nevertheless, in 1979, the Government of the Marshall Islands was officially established and the country became self-governing. In 1986, the Compact of Free Association with the United States entered into force, granting the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) its sovereignty. The Compact provided for aid and U.S. defense of the islands in exchange for continued U.S. military use of the missile testing range at Kwajalein Atoll. The independence procedure was formally completed under international law in 1990, when the UN officially ended the Trusteeship status. There are about 50 inhabited islands and another 35 uninhabited ones.

According to the US State Department report of February 2009:  "There were no accounts of societal violence based on sexual orientation. There are no enforced laws criminalizing homosexuality. In general homosexuals were accepted in society. There were no accounts of societal violence based on HIV/AIDS infection. There was some cultural stigma attached to HIV infection, but non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the government conducted campaigns to provide HIV/AIDS education and encourage testing for the disease.