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Anti-child marriage activists urge authorities 'to protect children's rights
Anti-child marriage activists have urged judges at both local religious and district courts to refrain from granting marriage permits to underage children in violation of the groundbreaking revisions to the 1974 Marriage Law to prevent child marriage and protect children's rights
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nti-child marriage activists have urged judges at both local religious and district courts to refrain from granting marriage permits to underage children in violation of the groundbreaking revisions to the 1974 Marriage Law to prevent child marriage and protect children's rights.
Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) commissioner Rita Pranawati said many early marriages were pushed for by parents who had not considered the harm that could befall their children.
According to KPAI data, only 22 percent of such marriages were carried out with the child's consent. The remaining marriages were performed for various other reasons, such as unwanted pregnancies, financial issues or the fear of “violating religious rules”.
"We hope the judges won't go too easy on granting marriage dispensation to underage children," Rita said on Tuesday, adding that about 91 percent of marriage dispensation requests were reportedly accepted by the authorities.
A marriage dispensation can be awarded by local courts if a request made by the parents of children below the marriageable age of 19 is approved.
Rita has pushed for the Supreme Court to set guidelines for judges to assure that only those who are truly prepared can obtain the dispensation.
A 2015 report by Statistics Indonesia (BPS) showed that child marriage was still rampant in Indonesia. One in four married women had married before the age of 18.
The then-prevailing law set a marriageable age limit of 16 for girls, contradicting the international law on child protection that defined children as "younger than 18 years old".
This sparked outrage among children's rights activists, who then fought for the increase of the age limit.
In October of last year, their demand was granted by lawmakers as they passed a 2019 law to revise the 1974 Marriage Law. One of the articles raised the marriageable age limit for girls to 19.
This, however, has not stopped early marriage. Several courts in the country have observed an increasing demand for marriage dispensations following the law revision.
The Mojokerto Religious Court in East Java recorded 30 requests in December of last year, ten times higher than the average of three applications per month before the revision was made.
In Malang, East Java, requests jumped to 361 in November from 86 in October, while in Central Java's capital of Semarang, the total number of applications in November doubled from 15 in the previous month.
Lia Anggiasih, a member of the Indonesian Women's Coalition (KPI), said it was the job of all parties to monitor judges’ activities to protect children from risky child marriages.
"There will always be a chance for dispensation whatever the minimum age is for marriage," Lia said. She highlighted the need for the education of parents because many of them were unaware of early marriage's impact on children's physical and mental health.
The Supreme Court’s spokesman Abdullah said the phenomenon was "worrisome", yet he was optimistic that the battle to prevent child marriage would be helped by new judiciary guidelines, created last year, for adjudicating marriage dispensation requests to comply with the revised Marriage Law.
"The supreme court regulation aims to ensure that the dispensation will only be granted after taking into account the receivers' physical and psychological condition," he said.
Abdullah explained that the regulation allowed judges to hear the children’s testimony without the presence of their
parents, ask for recommendations from experts such as doctors and psychologists, and demand parents' commitment to take care of their children's future families. (glh)
