Women, Law and Policy: Child Marriage Practices in Indonesia

Abstract

Child marriages are common throughout Indonesia. This is due to a strong influence of Indonesian customs and religion that strongly influence the lives of its people. It is worth pointing that marriage age arrangements in Indonesian Marriage Law reinforces that legal age for men is 19 years and 16 years for women. The 2012 statistics show that Indonesia is the 37th highest in the world in child marriage, while at the Southeast Asian level, this country ranks second after Cambodia. The ranking went up dramatically since in 2016, based on UNICEF, Indonesia ranked the 7th in child marriage worldwide. This means that the practice of child marriage in Indonesia happens, especially to women at the age of 18 years, and there is no discrimination related to the age of marriage. Against this matter, there has been a file for judicial review that demands marriage age for men and women to be pegged at the age of 18 years. However, the Judge of the Constitutional Court, through Decision Number 30-74/PUU-XII/2014, states that age of marriage remains valid for the 19-year-old for man and 16-year-old for women. The struggle does not stop there because at this time, there a national movement of STOP CHILD MARRIAGE formed by civil organisations in cooperation with the Commission of Child Protection and Ministry of Woman Empowerment and Child Protection. This movement sees that the practice of child marriage is a national emergency problem that must be addressed seriously. Further, this movement demands immediate enactment of government regulation in favour of the law which must promptly revise the Marriage Law, especially related to the marriage age.

Early marriage in Yogyakarta

“…Early marriage can occur due to several factors such as poverty, economic problems. Education, as well as tradition and religion [5]. The location of residence can also affect the level of early marriage that occurs.…”

Gender awareness and patriarchal relations on merariq kodeq culture in Ampenan Mataram

“…This is in accordance with the research results of Marphatia et al (2020) that "compared to women with low education, educated women are more likely to delay marriage and childbearing by 20 years. Apart from that (Judiasih 2018), the main causes of child marriage can be poverty, educational and economic barriers, tradition and religion. Suyanto et al (2023) Early marriage also makes girls more vulnerable to violence, discrimination and abuse, and prevents them from fully participating in the economic, political and social spheres.…”

Problems with the Islamic legal system regarding child marriages in Indonesia during the covid-19 pandemic period

“…1 of 1974 article 6 paragraphs 2, 3, 4 and 5 (Abubakar, 2019). Consequently, a marriage dispensation is considered to have a substantial impact on the increasing number of child marriages in Indonesia (Judiasih et al, 2018). This shows the government's inconsistency in regulating marital age in Indonesia since it offers alternative legal provisions to the existing marriage law.…”