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Photos: Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation (Movilh)

Mayra Opazo and Constanza Monsalves, mothers of a one-year-old baby girl, sued the State of Chile before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) for lesbophobia and for violating the child's best interests. They allege that they were discriminated against by the Civil Registry, the Viña del Mar Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court.

The couple lives in Villa Alemana. They are the mothers of Martina, who was born on April 17, 2017, after an artificial insemination process.

On March 26, 2018, the couple appeared at the Civil Registry in Viña del Mar to request legal recognition of the child's mother. Officials from the state agency told them it was not possible: that it was illegal. They decided to appeal to the Valparaíso Court of Appeals. Three months later, the court rejected their appeal by a vote of two to one: the dissenting vote was cast by Judge Silvana Donoso Ocampo.

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“The prohibition of dual maternal filiation (…) constitutes an arbitrary interference in our private lives, since it affects our family planning, personal development, and self-determination to become mothers. With a limitation like the one arbitrarily imposed on us, one of the mothers is inevitably excluded from her right to be, feel, and present herself as such. Likewise, Martina is deprived of the legal recognition of her true family. Furthermore, it violates the right to family protection and the protection of children's rights in relation to the right to privacy, preventing them from legally establishing their family,” states the lawsuit filed by the couple with legal representation from Diego Portales University and the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation (Movilh).

“They are denying us our family project”

Finally, on July 24, 2018, the Supreme Court upheld the Appeals Court's ruling. “We have suffered human rights violations that have caused us and our daughter serious harm and moral damages, affecting the child's best interests. They specified that the legal denial of dual motherhood “implies denying that this is part of their family life project, thus destroying our family project,” they stated in the legal filing.

The lawyers from UDP and Movilh stated that by denying double maternity, the State violated national and international norms, including the Political Constitution and the American Convention on Human Rights.

In the first case, the State's duty to protect the family (article 1), to respect international treaties (article 5), and to guarantee equality before the law and the right to physical and mental integrity (article 19), among other constitutional provisions, was violated.

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Similarly, the obligation of states to respect the American Convention on Human Rights (Article 1), the protection of the family (Article 17), the rights of the child (Article 19) and equality before the law (Article 24), guaranteed in the international instrument that recognizes rights to same-sex couples and their children, according to pronouncements of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, was violated.

“We hope that the Commission will accept this just demand and that Chile will be sanctioned,” concluded Movilh leader Rolando Jiménez.