MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chile legalizes divorce after decades of debate

Chilean President Ricardo Lagos on Friday signed the nation's first-ever divorce legislation, a bill that took nine years to get through Congress.

This is a gigantic step that strengthens the family, gives greater protection to children and puts an end to the difficult situation of those who, after the failure of a marriage, found it impossible to rebuild their lives," said the Socialist president.

Chile was the only country in the Americas that had no provision for divorce, and the sole legal means of ending a marriage was through annulment, a device to which Lagos himself resorted in the late 1960s.

Draft bills to allow divorce died in Congress many times in the last century.

"It has taken a long time to get to this moment," said Lagos, recalling that the law signed now - passed by lawmakers on March 11 - was first proposed in 1995.

Lagos signed the law to a standing ovation in a ceremony at La Moneda palace attended by more than 400 guests.

Absent from the event was the Catholic archbishop of Santiago, Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz, who had fiercely opposed the law.

"No one is in favor of divorce, but it was necessary to acknowledge that reality and legislate for it," Lagos said.

In survey after survey in the last few years, between 70 and 80 percent of Chileans said they were in favor of a divorce law.

Although the state and the Catholic Church in Chile have been separated by law since 1925, the prelates remain powerful and their opposition was a key factor in delaying passage of the new divorce law.