Eleven gay and lesbian couples will attempt to register their marriages in South Korea on Friday, expecting to launch a legal process they hope will get the country to recognize marriage equality.

The couples expect the local authorities will decline to register their marriages because South Korea does not currently recognize same-sex unions.

They plan to file a lawsuit if they cannot register and, eventually, to force the constitutional court to give a ruling.

One of the women planning to register, Kim Sae-yeon, described at a news conference on Thursday how a verdict in favor of marriage equality would be much more than symbolic for her family. She said she has no legal relationship with her daughter, who was born to her partner through IVF. "I worry that, in an emergency, I may not be recognized as my daughter's legal guardian," Kim said. "Most of all, I fear that if something happened to my wife, I might lose my daughter too."

Such lawsuits are rare in South Korea and the couples expect their petition could take five years to wind through the courts.

Hwang Yun-ha, who will seek to register her marriage to her wife, said they just want "to become a normal couple like any other married couple."

Public support for marriage equality has grown in South Korea over the years, up from 17 percent in 2001 to around 40 percent last year, according to Gallup polls.

"Discrimination has no place when two people love each other and want to make a family," said Hwang's mother Han Eun-jeong. Activists scored a legal victory in July when a court ruled that it was discriminatory for state health insurers to treat same-sex couples differently from heterosexual common law couples, who are allowed joint coverage.

Former lawmaker Jang Hye-young, who introduced the country's first marriage equality bill in May 2023, said that things were also changing in parliament, even if the law did not pass.

"The biggest issue in South Korean politics has been the silence long accepted when it comes to LGBTQ discrimination," Jang told AFP.

Around a quarter of South Korea's population identifies as Christian and there has been vocal opposition to any recognition of same-sex marriage from such groups, purportedly on religious grounds. (AFP)