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Child protection advocates fear spike in child marriages during pandemic
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The House of Representatives revised the 1974 Marriage Law to increase the minimum marriageable age of women from 16 to 19 in September 2019. (Shutterstock/File)
E
xperts and the nation’s child protection agency are urging the government to prevent a spike in child marriages during the COVID-19 health crisis, which they fear could exacerbate the problem.
The director of the University of Indonesia’s Child Protection and Wellbeing Center (Puskapa), Santi Kusumaningrum, said the pandemic had “multiplied preexisting vulnerabilities”, including the issues of poverty, school dropouts and unplanned pregnancies that have driven child marriages in the past.
“With life difficulties increasing and schools being closed, you can imagine that various risk factors are becoming more and more [present] around children,” she told The Jakarta Post.
Limited social opportunities due to the pandemic could also make young girls see marriage as a “way out” without understanding the risks of child marriages, she added.
However, she said no national figures were currently available to indicate whether child marriages had increased as a result of the pandemic.
Nevertheless, preventing child marriage during the pandemic is crucial to support human development, as children who are married are at higher risk of maternal deaths and dropping out of school, according to studies quoted by the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) in a virtual public discussion last week.
Read also: Virus despair forces girls across Asia into child marriage
