Jakarta, 18 September 2019 – UNICEF welcomes the recent amendment to Indonesia`s Marriage Law (1974), which raised the age at which girls can be married off with parental permission to match the age of boys from 16 to 19, which is also 19. The age of marriage for women and men without parental permission is 21. In Indonesia, the 2012 National Social and Economic Survey shows that high school graduates marry less often than former lower secondary students. The legal age for men and women to marry without parental consent is 21. Indonesia`s Constitutional Court ruled in December that it was discriminatory for women to have a lower age of marriage than for men who could legally marry at 19. For Sister Nathalia, a Dominican nun and member of the Secretariat for Gender and Women`s Empowerment of the Episcopal Conference of Indonesia (KWI), it was “an excellent step. It will have positive effects on many aspects of life. At 19, a woman is mature enough to cope with married life: she is ready for pregnancy, childbirth and child growth. In West Lombok, for example, where the rate of child marriage is relatively high at 25%, young people work with village-level institutions. They advocate for funding to protect girls from early marriage by providing information on reproductive health and rights. “My dreams were just to go to school and play, but I couldn`t.
I was married and had to take care of a child,” she said. One in four girls in Indonesia will be married before the age of 18, according to a 2016 report by Indonesia`s statistics agency and the United Nations Children`s Fund (UNICEF). The old limit was 16 years. Every year, one in six Indonesian girls (340,000) marries before the age of 18. Religious courts have already granted an exemption to a 15-year-old to be legally married. It is important to note that while the previous legal age for girls was 16, there have been reports of girls married at the age of 14 in this Southeast Asian country. This was due to a loophole that allows an exception for minor couples if they receive permission from a religious court. Despite the welcome amendment to the Marriage Act, this gap persists. ABC News, the news division of the American Broadcasting Company, quoted Naila as saying religion and cultural practices play an important role in the case, adding that two religious parties opposed raising the legal age. Naila Zakiah, an Indonesian women`s rights activist who campaigned for change, said girls married young were in a “vulnerable position to become victims of domestic violence.” In Indonesia, one in nine children under the age of 18, or 11.2 percent, out of a total of 79.6 million children across the country, is married, according to figures from the Indonesian Bureau of Statistics for 2018.
Earlier this month, Indonesia`s parliament revised its national laws to raise the legal age at which a girl can marry after years of pressure from interest groups. Child marriage is a widespread problem in several ASEAN countries, with Indonesia being just one. The new amendment to the Marriage Act is a welcome first step, but as long as poverty prevails, parents cannot have the power to decide whether or not to marry off their children. Rasminah from a village in West Java describes herself as a survivor of child marriage – when she was 30, she had been married four times by her parents. Raising the legal age of marriage for women to 19 gives girls more opportunities to complete secondary education before getting married. “Society still encourages girls to marry as teenagers, otherwise they are seen as crazy,” said Masruchah of the National Commission on Violence against Women. One in nine Indonesian women marries before the age of 18. Lawmakers across the country want that to change. Two years ago, they raised the legal age of marriage for women from 16 to 19 to match that of men. In early 2020, the government reaffirmed its goal of reducing the rate of child marriage by 40% within a decade. Indonesia previously allowed girls aged 16 or younger – with no minimum age – to marry if their parents requested it. When RASMINAH was 13, her parents forced her to drop out of school and marry a man who was 27 at the time.
“I was heartbroken,” she says. “I watched my friends go to school every morning and I wish it was my life.” When the marriage failed, she remarried to a 40-year-old man at the age of 15. Her ex-husband was 27 years old. They soon married, and a year later she gave birth to her son. Meanwhile, according to government estimates, only about 5% of all child marriages go through legal channels. In many cases, authorities are deliberately left in the dark by families who know that marriage is illegal. But marriages are also not regulated because registering them comes at cost and effort, says Nina Nurmila of the National Commission on Violence against Women. Asking a civil servant to travel to attend a rural wedding can cost about $40, or about one and a half times the monthly salary of an Indonesian living below the national poverty line. Many families conclude that it is enough to get the blessing of religious leaders, says Nani Zulminarni of the women`s group PEKKA.
According to the Indonesian Bureau of Statistics in 2018, one in nine children under the age of 18 in Indonesia is married, accounting for 11.2% of a total of 79.6 million children across the country. According to a 2016 report by the United Nations Children`s Fund (UNICEF), Indonesia has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world. Every year, one in six Indonesian girls, or a total of about 340,000, is married before the age of 18. A report by the United Nations Children`s Fund (UNICEF), produced in cooperation with Indonesia`s Badan Pusat Statistics (BPS), ranks the country 37th in the world for child marriage, second in Southeast Asia after Cambodia. However, rights group Girls Not Brides places Indonesia in the top ten child brides in the world. In Indonesia, one in nine married women was married as a child. Child marriage robs girls of their childhood and threatens their lives and health, as child brides are more likely to become pregnant at a younger and riskier age. Girls who marry before the age of 18 are also more likely to be victims of domestic violence and are less likely to stay in school. The study shows that parents ask permission to marry off their daughters before the legal age because they fear their children will commit adultery, especially if their children are in a relationship.
The changes now allow the courts to hear the child`s opinion on his or her wish to marry, whereas previously it was solely the decision of the parents. However, parents can still file a petition with local and religious courts, which can then grant “special circumstances” to circumvent the law and marry their minor children. “I still remember my mother telling me that I was no longer in primary school and that I just had to get married so someone could make sure I was fed and bring rice to the table,” she said. She said it took courage to divorce her husband the following year because she “didn`t even know what marriage meant, let alone divorce.” According to UNICEF, 14% of girls in Indonesia are married before the age of 18 and 1% before their 15th birthday. Child marriages still exist in India, although the legal age of marriage for women has been 18 since 1978. Early last month, after years of pressure from interest groups, Indonesia`s parliament revised its national laws to raise the legal age for a girl to marry. The amendment to the Marriage Act raised the age of marriage for girls to 19, which is the legal age for boys with parental permission, while the legal age for men and women to marry without parental consent is 21. Previously, the legal age of marriage for girls with parental permission was 16. With the amendment of the Marriage Act, the age of marriage for girls with parental permission was raised to 19, which corresponds to the legal age for boys.