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EDITORIAL: Say no to 'nikah siri'
Komnas Perempuan states that much of the violence against women is found to be in unregistered marriages.
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Komnas Perempuan states that much of the violence against women is found to be in unregistered marriages. (Shutterstock/File)
D
ating services help lonely hearts worldwide but an online service offering convenient partners for nikah siri (unregistered marriages) has whipped up a storm. The website, which also reportedly planned a “virginity auction,” was promptly closed by the Communications and Information Ministry.
The owner of the nikahsirri.com website, a businessman named Aris Wahyudi, was arrested Sunday. An angry Social Affairs Minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa has warned the public against the business platform’s attempts to profit from legalizing adultery and making a commodity out of nikah siri, which cannot guarantee the rights of wives and their children.
Nevertheless thousands had registered on the website, reflecting widespread interest in nikah siri, literally discreet marriages, which are common in Indonesia. Such marriages involve far less hassles — mainly in acquiring permission of the first wife, in the case of legal polygamous unions.
Aris is accused of violating the Pornography Law and the Electronic Information and Transactions Law; but his website is only one of several, and similar online services were first reported several years ago.
This merely shows digital innovations on the old practice of unregistered marriages. Despite its potential harm, as cited by Minister Khofifah, a former women’s empowerment minister, the practice continues, though figures are hard to obtain. The National Commission for Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan) states that much of the violence against women is found to be in unregistered marriages. Given the absence of legal rights in such marriages both women and men should “say no to nikah siri,” a Commission member, Nina Nurmila, said in an interview with Republika daily.
Komnas Perempuan pushes for more education of women and men to prevent any form of unregistered marriages. The Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) in 2006 issued a fatwa that nikah siri was halal in Islam, when it fulfills the basic requirements of the marriage vows, witnesses, the bride and bridegroom and guardians. However the fatwa warns of its potential hazards and the MUI repeatedly urges couples to get remarried by officials at their local religious affairs office, to gain registration and their marriage certificates, which ensures the protection of the rights and obligations of husband and wife under Islam and under the 1974 Marriage Law.
A study on contract marriages in a popular destination for Arab tourists in the popular Puncak mountain resort in West Java, published in Jurnal Perempuan (Women’s Journal) in 2015, concluded that there was practically no difference between contract marriages and nikah siri; despite “contracts” wives have virtually no protection, with the contract merely lasting for the duration of the marriage.
The latest incident of the banned online service is a good time to take up the Komnas Perempuan call: “say no to nikah siri, no to contract marriages”. Building nests is no easy job; tying the knot in the public eye is, at the very least, the first attempt.
