This article addresses the dilemmas and compromises in legal practice around the issue of child marriage in Indonesia. Although the government set development goals that include ending child marriage and complying with human rights standard, it is facing considerable resistance. We researched the state legal system and law in practice to understand this resistance, finding that: (1) law-making in family law involves conflict between progressive and conservative ideas; (2) consequently there is friction within current family law and laws regarding human rights; (3) judges use their discretion to achieve compromises between state laws and local norms; and (4) state law is creatively interpreted and applied at village level. The resistance at all these levels, arising from the religious concerns of conservative Muslims in a rapidly modernizing Indonesian society, is a formidable obstacle for the government to achieve its development goals. Adolescent sexuality is at the heart of these tensions.

By studying child marriage as a discursive practice, this article argues that the current international legal framework of child marriage is problematic. Transnational organisations dismiss what they consider to be the 'tradition' of 'the South', while their linear conceptualisation of development fails to recognise the possibility of adolescent agency existing within 'traditional' social networks. This overlooked blind spot is a problem we encounter more frequently with human rights: without overcoming the blind spot, the human rights framework risks becoming self-defeating and failing to achieve the endwhich is to protect agency of human beings. A reconceptualisation of the current black-and-white child marriage framework is needed, so that it becomes fully emancipatory and efficient in practice.

This article provides empirical evidence on children’s agency and capacity in making the decision to marry. Case studies from my fieldwork in Bali contrast the commonly represented image of child marriage as a forced marriage, by demonstrating that in many cases children themselves make the decision to marry. However, considering social power dynamics, is such a decision really the child’s? The analysis shows that the current international child marriage framework fails to walk the thin line between empowerment and protection of children. Policies instead should be designed to encourage their participation in decision making and stimulate their resilience in their life after marriage.

This article discusses challenges posed by the implementation of international human rights law through the case of child marriage in Indonesia. Supporting data consist mostly of court decisions and interviews with judges carried out at three separate Islamic courts in West Java. Results show that the Indonesian pluralistic legal system is structurally organized so as to accommodate human rights norms with religious concerns and customary practices, which therefore provides judges with significant leeway in arbitrating between different types of law, which conflict on the question of child marriage. Left at the discretion of judges, rulings on child marriage cases may result in religious or customary law being favoured over state and international law. Judges do so to ‘protect children’ from social stigma, which is associated with pregnancy and sexual intercourse out of wedlock.