Early marriage, adolescent motherhood, and reproductive rights for young Sasak mothers in Lombok

Abstract

This article focuses on Indonesian adolescents who are wives and mothers, demonstrating how early marriage and adolescent motherhood are normative among women from poor Sasak communities in Western Lombok. It is based on ethnographic research with 28 young mothers that included focus group discussions, in depth interviews, and observations. Demographic and ethnographic data on the aetiology of early marriage and adolescent motherhood are discussed, and confirm that low educational attainment for girls, lack of employment prospects, poverty, and low levels of economic development are all associated with a higher probability of adolescent marriage and motherhood in Indonesia. The article also reveals how conservative sexual morality and local marriage customs can propel girls into early marriage. It provides a human rights analysis that demonstrates how early marriage and adolescent motherhood intersect with the neglect of girls' rights to education, employment, equality in marriage, health information, family planning, and maternal health.

‘I wanted to enjoy our marriage first… but I got pregnant right away’: a qualitative study of family planning understandings and decisions of women in urban Yogyakarta, Indonesia

“…The definition of the postpartum period that we adopt in this study extends to the first year following a woman’s delivery, often referred to as the extended postpartum period [ 14 ]. Ethnographic methods have been well tested by a lineage of researchers in Southeast and South Asia in their investigations of women’s reproductive and sexual health and rights, including Bennett [ 39 , 40 , 43 ], Chakraborty [ 44 ], Parker [ 45 , 46 ] and Raman [ 27 , 28 , 47 ]. The Center for Reproductive Health at Gadjah Mada University provided an institutional base and the Center’s Director, SAW, sponsored BRS to obtain the required foreign research permit from the Indonesian Ministry of Research and Technology.…”

“…With the exception of a recent quantitative analysis by Wilopo and colleagues [ 38 ], postpartum family planning remains underexplored in the Indonesian context, and this is a key contribution of this study. In addition, qualitative studies on women’s reproductive health in Indonesia have tended to focus on the experiences of less affluent women [ 5 , 7 , 33 , 37 , 39 – 41 ]. Enquiry into the reproductive lives of middle class Indonesian women has been rather more limited, with the exception of Bennett’s [ 42 , 43 ] recent work on infertility.…”

Intergenerational Patterns of Early Marriage and Childbearing in Rural Central Java, Indonesia

“…Although maternal factor is a consistent proxy for inter-generational early childbearing, the life-course experiences of daughters is strongly associated with their family environment where they are brought up, socio-cultural context, and preferences on the timing of family formation (Chen & Landau, 2015;Nettle & Cockerill, 2010). The life-course approach argues that familial experience of poverty, poor parenting, low levels of economic development and lack of educational attainment have put young women at a higher risk of early motherhood (Bennett, 2014). Daughters of teen mothers are more likely to grow up in disadvantaged families with lower economic status and fewer resources available to support their education (Chen & Landau, 2015;Manlove, 1997;Rowlingson & McKay, 2005).…”

“…While most studies related to early motherhood are considered dated, the theoretical framework of adolescent motherhood remains applicable to the current demographic situation of Indonesia (Bennett, 2014;Jones, 2001;. Research on intergenerational early childbearing in Indonesia is also scarce as it requires fertility data from at least two different This study was a presentation of selected cases from a larger qualitative phenomenology study on early marriage and childbearing in rural Central Java which involved 15 women who gave birth to their first child before the age of 18.…”

Abuse of Islamic Law and Child Marriage in South-Sulawesi Indonesia

“…Bennett clarifies that education and employment has been neglected for this group. 64 Women or girls should be promoted to have longer participation in formal education in order to eliminate structural gender discrimination.…”