After 15 years of marriage, Petrus Leni and Maria Abuk of North Timur Tengah (TTU) regency, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), have finally managed to obtain a state-issued marriage certificate.

Married in 2000, Petrus and Maria said they were too poor to register their marriage with the local Population and Civil Registration Agency. Without the document, the couple had also been unable to obtain birth certificates for their four children.

'€œWe didn'€™t have the money to have our marriage registered in Kefamenanu,'€ Petrus said recently, referring to the regency'€™s capital.

Data from the Home Ministry shows that only 30 percent of NTT'€™s population of 5 million people currently have a birth certificate, the lowest rate in the country.

TTU, located some 200 kilometers northeast of the provincial capital of Kupang, meanwhile, reported that only 39,972, or 15.8 percent, of the regency'€™s 252,135 residents had a birth certificate, the document that proves a person'€™s citizenship status.

In an effort to obtain the vital document for their current and planned children, hundreds of married couples in the regency, including Petrus and Maria, gathered last week at St. Petrus Paulus Church in Hauteas subdistrict, North Biboki district, to attend a marriage registration program organized by Jakarta-based NGO Plan International Indonesia (Plan).

The one-day event allowed participating couples, who previously tied the knot at churches or in customary wedding ceremonies, to have their marriages registered with the TTU Population and Civil Registration Agency free of charge. Some of the couples had been married for decades without any official documentation.

After the event, 273 couples returned home with an official marriage certificate issued by the agency.

'€œAfter having their marriages registered with the state, the couples are now eligible to apply for birth certificates for their children,'€ Plan country director Mingming Remata Evora told reporters on the sidelines of the event.

According to Mingming, without a birth certificate, a child could easily fall victim to various crimes, particularly child trafficking and child abuse. The absence of a birth certificate, she said, also made it difficult for children to access basic public services, including in health and education.

Indonesia, a Muslim-majority country, mandates Muslim citizens to register their marriages with the Religious Affairs Ministry'€™s local office and non-Muslims with the local civil registration authorities.

However, in NTT, where some 90 percent of its population are Christians, poverty has been considered the main reason for the high number of unregistered citizens.

A married couple in NTT, for example, must pay around Rp 200,000 (US$14.70) to apply for a marriage certificate. Those living in remote parts of the province, meanwhile, must spend more money for transportation and accommodation as the civil registration agency'€™s headquarters is located in the regency'€™s capital.

Plan, according to Mingming, has pushed the TTU regional administration to decentralize its civil registration services. '€œSuch decentralization so far manifested in the establishment of two technical management units [UPT] for civil registration services in North Bikomi and Central Biboki districts,'€ she said.

TTU Deputy Regent Aloysius Kobes applauded the marriage registration program, saying that it helped his administration'€™s efforts to significantly reduce the number of '€œillegal residents'€ in the regency.

'€œWithout proper civil registry documents, married couples and their children will be considered illegal citizens,'€ he said.

Popular

More jobs, less value: Indonesia’s labor efficiency gap

Indonesia condemns Israeli demolition of UNRWA buildings

Prabowo’s $6 billion rescue plan leaves textile industry puzzled