Women National Assembly (Saturday, 20/4) discussed in detail the issue of child marriage, and draw key recommendations. Child marriage is a marriage that happened at the age of or below 19 years old. The fact now is that child marriage is increasing in numbers.
The increase in child marriage is reflected in the Women Empowerment and Child Protection and National Human Rights Commission data, and in court decisions regarding marriage exemption particularly between 1019 and 2020. The national average on child marriage is around8.4% between 2020 and 2023.
There are four related issues. The representative of participants (grassroots women) who presents the issue (child marriage) have made joint analysis, with the following results. First, there is the issue about limited access to education, rights to sexual health and reproductive health, and the limited education facilities and infrastructure in isolated, remote and border areas. Second, there is little participation of community leaders, traditional leaders and religious leaders in information dissemination about preventive measures, and the lack of room for evaluation and control regarding exemption policy for child marriage. Third, there is weakness in monitoring by non-government entities, civil society organisations and communities with regards to strategies for women empowerment and child protection, the integration of child-marriage-related preventive measures into Government Regulation Planning, National Mid-term Development Plan, and Regional Mid-term Development Plans. Fourth, Children, particularly girls, who are married when they are 19 years old or below that age, have not had any engagement with government programs, except when there are cases of violence.
Factors that led to child marriage included the following. First, a direct contributing factor includes family believe that children are assets where child marriage becomes strategy to reduce economic burden. Second, parents have little knowledge/awareness about reproductive and sexual health, unwanted pregnancies, and the impacts that child marriage has on the child and the community. Third, there is a traditional stigma about (old) unmarried women which drives the urge to marry young, there is also mistaken understanding of religious dogma which feeds into the belief that child marriage is a form of religious devotion. At the community level, there is also an indirect contributing factor where child marriage is considered “trendy.” At the state level, there are also issues such as marriage exemption, weakness in monitoring, lack of leading government roles on the issue, lack of education infrastructure particularly with regards to sexual and reproductive health.
All the above encouraged grassroots participants to propose a faster reduction of child marriage cases in Indonesia. Their recommendations are as follows. First, there is a need to strengthen parents’roles in family education particularly with regards to Gender, Equality, Disability, Social, Inclusion perspective, reproductive and sexual health, and the impacts of child marriage. Second, it is also important to broaden access to quality infrastructure and knowledge about sexual and reproductive health. Third, there is a need to promote women participation, broaden opportunities for employment and business activities for poor families and/or families who live in remote, isolated and border areas. Finally, it is also important to conduct and monitor evaluation on regulation, policies, programs and budget. (Astuti)
