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New hope to end child marriage with law revision

A new hope to curb child marriage in Indonesia is emerging as the House of Representatives has finally agreed to increase the minimum marriageable age of women from 16 to 19

Gisela Swaragita (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Tue, September 17, 2019

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New hope to end child marriage with law revision

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span>A new hope to curb child marriage in Indonesia is emerging as the House of Representatives has finally agreed to increase the minimum marriageable age of women from 16 to 19. The House agreed to revise Indonesia’s 1974 Marriage Law before the end of its current term in October.

The revision is a follow-up to the Constitutional Court’s ruling last year that the previous minimum age for women to marry was unconstitutional. The court said the difference between the minimum ages for men and women was a form of gender-based discrimination and, thus, violated the 1945 Constitution.

A women’s rights activist, Tunggal Pawestri, lauded the decision, although she added that there is room for improvement.

“Considering the refusal and rejection that we received for so many years, it’s a good start,” she told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

“Ideally [the minimum marriageable age] should be older [than 19], like what the National Population and Family Planning Board [BKKBN] and the Health Ministry proposed, which was 21 years old,” she said.

In 2015, the BKKBN issued a recommendation to increase the minimum marriage age to 21 for women and 25 for men to avoid unprepared marriages that can lead to poverty, as well as to death during childbirth.

Tunggal emphasized that it is paramount for the government to provide comprehensive reproduction health and sexual education to youngsters to bolster the revised law.

“What worries us about early marriage is the reproduction health and financial unpreparedness that might increase the risks of maternal mortality and prolong poverty,” Tunggal said. “Therefore, making 19 the minimum age is not a problem as long comprehensive reproduction heath and sexual education is provided, instead of telling them just to be abstinent.”

She highlighted the draft of the revised Criminal Code (RKUHP), which, if passed, may allow prosecution of sex educators who recommend contraceptives.

“The [aforementioned] issues are interrelated,” she said.

According to the House’s Legislation Body (Baleg), the revision would be limited to Article 7 of the Marriage Law, which also includes a point concerning dispensation for teenagers seeking a marriage permit. The House also aims to make it more difficult for teenagers to be granted an exemption.

There have been cases of teenage couples who were allowed to marry after receiving permission from the Religious Court, as per their parents’ request. 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 engage in premarital sex.

Yulianti Muthmainah, a lecturer at the Ahmad Dahlan Institute of Technology and Business in Jakarta, said that although many families opt to marry their young children off to avoid sin, Islam never promotes early marriage.

“Many people say to avoid premarital sex, early marriage is better. However, the solution recommended in the Quran and hadist is not to get married sooner but to lower their gaze, keep bad thoughts from the heart and eventually fast,” Yulianti told the Post.

She said many families consider the daughter’s first menstruation and the son’s first nocturnal emission as the sign of coming-of-age, thus indicating they are ready to marry.

“Instead, it is the sign for them to do their full obligation as a Muslim, which is to pray, fast, donate to charity and go on haj when they can afford it: not to get married,” she said. “Their readiness to get married is determined by their reproduction, social and cultural preparedness.”

Yulianti added that marriage after the coming of age is considered mubah, or an allowed practice, not an obligation.

“Mubah means it is allowed. If it is done, it is alright. If not, it is not sinful,” she said.

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