SMPN 1 Tamanan state junior high school teacher Sri Wahyuningsih began to panic when one of her female students had not appeared at school for days as the national exam approached.

To discover the reason, Sri, who teaches the subject Pancasila and Civic Education (PPKN), went to her missing student’s house. After arriving, she saw some women cooking and some men putting up a tent and arranging chairs. She stood in front of the house in confusion.

The parents of the student then welcomed her. While serving food in the living room, they told her they were preparing for their daughter’s engagement party. She lost her appetite, her heart was broken.       

“They said, ‘Our daughter will marry. Why does she still need to go to school?’,” Sri recalled.

“I replied, ‘Please let her finish her studies first, at least junior high school.”

Sri’s heart raced as she waited for her student on exam day. An hour before the exam started, she was thrilled to see her student, accompanied by her fiancé. Sri encouraged her to pursue Kejar Paket C, the senior high-school equivalency diploma.    

The 39-year-old Sri knows that child marriage remains rampant in Bondowoso, but she will never give up in her fight to end it.

In 2016, Sri received the Saparinah Sadli Award, which is taken from the name of a prominent Indonesian feminist, for socializing sexual and reproductive health to people in Bondowoso — a city with the highest child marriage prevalence in East Java — as a way to stop child marriage.

She began her campaign in 2012, after attending a workshop on reproductive health by Yayasan Kesehatan Perempuan (Women’s Health Foundation) in Bondowoso. Afterward, Sri and 24 teachers formed the Teacher Association for Reproductive Health (PGP Kespro).  

In Indonesia, the percentage of women aged 20-24 who married before they turned 18 was 25.7 percent in 2017, up from 22.8 percent in 2015. The country is ranked seventh in the world and second in ASEAN after Cambodia for recorded cases of child marriage.

According to the 1974 Marriage Law, the minimum legal marriage ages for women and men are 16 and 19 years old, respectively. In 2015, the Constitutional Court thwarted a judicial review attempt to change the minimum age for girls to 18.  

Sri said that child marriage was a serious issue in Bondowoso for many reasons, including the traditional belief that if a teenage boy and teenage girl were often seen together, their parents should force them to marry.    

Other contributing factors include out-of-wedlock pregnancy, which is stigmatized in society, and the gender stereotype that women do not need higher education.

“Parents also believe that marriage is the ultimate solution to their economic hardships. After the wedding, they feel they no longer have the responsibility to raise their underage daughter. In fact, the problem will worsen, especially if the husband is also underage and does not have a decent income,” she said.    

 To inform parents about the importance of higher education and the physical and physiological risks of early pregnancy for girls, PGP Kespro utilizes religious gatherings in villages, as well as the time when parents visit school to receive their children’s student report cards.

Sri said she had faced challenges talking about early pregnancy risks and sexuality at school, but that by using child-friendly language, students understood.

Having socialized the importance of sexual and reproductive health for five years, Sri has noticed that students have a deep curiosity about the issue. However, during Q&A sessions, they are often too shy to ask questions because it is still deemed taboo.   

“They have yet to understand the differences between sex and sexuality,” she said.   

Therefore, she said, she informed them of her cellphone number for personal consultation. Her strategy has proven successful, with many of her students calling or texting her after class.   

In November 2017, SMPN 1 Tamanan released a short movie, entitled Angan Yang Sirna (Missing Dreams), whose cast members are the school’s students and teachers.

Teaming up with school alumni studying at the Indonesian Arts Institute (ISI) in Yogyakarta, Sri directed and wrote the screenplay.

Through the movie, the students break their silence on child marriage, and convey the message that they are not yet ready to marry because they have big dreams they want to achieve, a wish they previously did not have the courage to tell their parents.    

“When watching the movie, parents cry,” she said. “Teachers, as the second parents of students at school, really need to understand their physiological development.”

Popular

Prabowo inaugurates construction of Majapahit palace replica

Indonesia sees hottest April in 40 years

Is Indonesia really ready to embrace dual citizenship?