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House to increase minimum marriage age for women
The House of Representatives has announced it will revise the 1974 Marriage Law and increase the minimum marriageable age for women from 16 to 19 before the end of the current term in October
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span>The House of Representatives has announced it will revise the 1974 Marriage Law and increase the minimum marriageable age for women from 16 to 19 before the end of the current term in October.
According to the House’s Legislation Body (Baleg), the revision will be limited to Article 7 of the law, which also includes a point concerning dispensation for teenagers seeking a marriage permit. The House aims to make it more difficult for them to be granted an exemption.
“It’s a good time for Baleg to carry out this limited revision in the next three months before the end of its term. There will be no technical hurdles because we’ll only revise one article,” Baleg member Eva Kusuma Sundari of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) said in Jakarta on Tuesday.
The revision is a follow-up to the Constitutional Court’s (MK) decision last year to deem the current minimum marriage age for women unconstitutional. The minimum age to marry for men is 19.
The court further argued that the difference in the minimum age for men and women was a form of gender-based discrimination and, therefore, contradicted the 1945 Constitution.
However, it refused to grant the plaintiffs’ demand to raise the minimum age for women to marry, arguing that it was the job of lawmakers to do so.
Golkar lawmaker Hetifah Sjaifudian, who is also a member of the Indonesian Women’s Parliamentary Caucus (KPPI), said the same marriageable age minimum for men and women would reduce child marriage and eradicate legal discrimination against women.
Hetifah went on to say that the House might also revise Article 7 paragraph 2, which allows religious courts to grant a dispensation to underage couples who wish to marry.
“We should apply a stricter procedure to get the marriage dispensation,” Hetifah said.
There have been cases of teenage couples who were allowed to marry after receiving permission from the Religious Court, as per their parents’ requests. However, concerns were raised after a girl in Indramayu, West Java, who had gotten married at 15, died about two years into her marriage in 2018, allegedly because of domestic abuse.
The girl was legally married to her husband, then 16, at the Indramayu Religious Court. Their families decided to marry them out of concern they might have premarital sex.
Sutriyatmi of the Indonesian Women’s Coalition (KPI) suggested that the House scrap the phrase “extraordinary conditions”, such as pregnancies, that would allow religious courts to grant underage couples a dispensation to marry.
“In reality, most of the courts are not careful enough in examining the reasons behind the dispensation request. The revision should specifically outline that they can approve a marriage if it was the best option for the couple. The regulation should be made stricter.”
Golkar’s Hetifah said she was bracing for some lawmakers to reject the revision, particularly from the more conservative factions in the House, but hoped they would be few in numbers.
Meanwhile, Islamist Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) lawmaker Ledia Hanifa Amaliah acknowledged the problems surrounding child marriage, including the high rate of school dropouts. She added that the House’s deliberations would also consider the various reasons for early marriage, including unwanted pregnancies.
“There are several problems that can be prevented through marriage, such as casual sex. We need to think whether [the revision] can solve such problems,” Ledia said.
