Montenegro is a Southern European country with under 1 million citizens, 620,029 to be exact, according to a 2011 census. It is a country in the Western Balkans and part of former Yugoslavia, which has only been a sovereign country since a 2006 referendum that saw 55 per cent of its citizens vote for independence from its former union with Serbia.
Montenegro is a country of dual languages, Serbian and Montenegrin, as well as dual religious believes: Islam and Christianity. With its contentious past of communism as well as its split from Serbia, the country is still battling with its conservative past while wanting to move forward and become part of the EU. In that light, despite its toxic environment for LGBTQ persons, it has just passed a progressive bill that will see same-sex civil companionships legal for the first time in its history.
