AES31 Saying No to Child Marriage in Indonesia

Indonesia has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world. In certain regions in Indonesia, child marriage practices are quite common. According to the 2018 Socio-economic National Survey (Susenas), one in every nine girls aged 20-24 gets married before the age of 18.

It has been a tradition that if a man comes to propose to a girl, in some villages, usually the girl’s family will accept the proposal right away. Fearing that if it was rejected the other men would hesitate to propose to the girl, and she would turn into a perawan tua. In some villages, if a woman is single at the age of 18-19 she is considered a spinster. 

When a girl completes her elementary school and doesn’t advance her education, because there are no junior high schools in their villages. She would end up marrying a man. For poor families, having their daughter marrying is a solution to reduce their economic burden. And sadly, parents most of the time don’t really care about who the grooms are. 

Child marriage is one of the biggest factors in perpetuating the cycle of poverty, illiteracy, and the low quality of life among poor communities in Indonesia. This contributes to the greater issue of stunting the development of the nation. Child marriage causes many young girls to stop going to school.

So stopping school affects the quality of human resources. And when the quality of human resources is low, then they won’t be able to get a job that can provide for their families when they get married. The need for education extends beyond just children, as a lot of the issues arises from parent’s own traditional understanding of marriage. 

I saw a youtube video about child marriages in Indonesia this is the link if you want to check it out (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_cskmQwlPo) So the woman in this video said that she had a case once in Bondowoso. There was this secondary school girl, and her parent wanted her to marry off a far older man.

In Bondowoso, YKP has set up a help center that members of the local community can seek refuge at in cases of child marriage. So the girl came and told them what her issue was. And she clearly didn’t want to get married. 

She got some help from her local teachers and religious figures to come and talk to her parents. Her parents said that there are no parents that would cause grief to their own child. They said, “Im marrying you off because I want you to live a happy life”. Because the man was financially stable, and he could guarantee a good life for her. The girl replied, “If you really want me to live a fulfilling and economically viable life, Don’t marry me off but give me a chance to get a better education.”

  If we actually get a law that can stop child marriage we can hit 5 points on the Sustainable Development Goals, (poverty, hunger, health, education, and gender equality) If we’re gonna end child marriage we have to do it together. I believe that we are capable to lower our child marriage rate. We can do this!

picture: https://en.antaranews.com/news/155658/ending-child-marriage-will-require-collective-effort-official