This announcement came on top of a string of other transformations. In a landmark abortion law made it only the second country in Latin America, after Cuba, to give women access to safe abortions. In the s, Uruguay pioneered universal, free, secular education , the first Latin American country to make it compulsory for every child to attend school.
That focus on education has its echoes in a modern-day policy to give every student a laptop. It was also one of the first countries in the region to give women the right to vote, and legalised divorce in That was decades ahead of other South American countries, and nearly a century ahead of nearby Chile, which only passed a similar law in But this century it has been returning to its political roots, to become a model not just for the region, but for the world. Emma Graham-Harrison is international affairs editor.
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