Child Marriage Surges Amid COVID-19 and Growing Conservatism
Despite legal progress to prevent child marriage, numbers are climbing during the Covid-19 pandemic. Photo by Arnas Padda for Antara (via Indoesia at Melbourne)
Indonesia is experiencing a surge in child marriages. By June, 24,000 applications for permission to marry underage had been lodged with district and religious courts this year – more than two and a half times the total number for the whole of 2012.
This escalation goes against significant recent improvements in the legal framework, policies, and public campaigns, as well as the government’s stated aim to reduce the prevalence of child marriage from 11.2% to 8.7% by 2024.
Court clerks cite teen pregnancies and last year’s amendment to the 1974 Marriage Law as reasons for the higher number of requests to marry young.
Under the 1974 Marriage Law, the minimum age of marriage was 19 for boys and 16 for girls, provided they had permission from their parents. The 2019 amendments raised the minimum marriageable age for girls to 19, with parental permission, bringing it into line with the minimum for boys (Article 7(1)). However, the revised law still allows parents to ask courts for special dispensation for their children to marry before 19 if there are “pressing reasons” (Article 7(2)).
Many factors drive child marriage in Indonesia. Poverty, education, the stigmatization of sexuality outside marriage, religious convictions, local perceptions about marriageable age, and even ‘mutual love’ (suka-sama-suka) among teen couples all play a role in rates of child marriage.
The Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection has expressed concern that increased economic pressure from Covid-19 may be leading parents to push their children to marry young, to reduce the economic burden on their households. A trend that idealizes young marriage, promoted by conservative religious groups and on social media, is another factor.
Click here to keep reading. Laras Susanti writes for Indonesia at Melbourne.