Colombia, South America

With an area more than twice that of France Colomba has the second largest population in South America, after Brazil. Colombia has the third largest Spanish-speaking population in the world after Mexico and Spain. In recent years, the country has continued to be plagued by the effects of the drug trade, guerrilla insurgencies like FARC and paramilitary groups. During the presidency of Álvaro Uribe, who was elected on the promise of applying military pressure on the FARC and other outlawed groups, security indicators have improved.

LGBT rights in Colombia have progressed since consensual homosexual activity was decriminalized in 1980 with amendments to the Criminal Code. Between February 2007 and April 2008 three rulings of the Constitutional Court granted registered same-sex couples the same pension, social security and property rights as for registered heterosexual couples. Law reforms in the 1990s equalized the age of consent in Colombia at 14 for both homosexual and heterosexual sex. Colombia and Uruguay are the only two countries in Latin America that grant same sex couples a nation-wide legal mechanism to register and protect the rights of their civil unions.