No national figures are currently available to indicate whether child marriages have increased as a result of the pandemic. AFP
Experts in Indonesia and the nation’s child protection agency are urging the government to prevent a spike in child marriages during the Covid-19 health crisis, which they fear could exacerbate the problem.
The director of the University of Indonesia’s Child Protection and Wellbeing Centre (Puskapa), Santi Kusumaningrum, said the pandemic had “multiplied pre-existing vulnerabilities”, including the issues of poverty, school dropouts and unplanned pregnancies that have driven child marriages in the past.
She told The Jakarta Post: “With life difficulties increasing and schools being closed, you can imagine that various risk factors are becoming more and more [present] around children.”
Limited social opportunities due to the pandemic could also make young girls see marriage as a “way out” without understanding the risks of child marriages, she added.
However, she said no national figures were currently available to indicate whether child marriages had increased as a result of the pandemic.
Santi said strengthening laws and policies, ensuring children had access to health and education facilities and providing sexual education classes in schools were some of the ways to reduce the number of child marriages in Indonesia during the pandemic.
Her recommendations were based on Puskapa’s recent study with Statistics Indonesia, Bappenas and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Rita Pranawati, the deputy chairperson of the government-sanctioned Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI), said while the pandemic could contribute to an increase in child marriages, more research was needed to determine the extent of its impact.
She instead said unplanned pregnancies, socioeconomic conditions and deep-rooted cultural norms around early marriage in some parts of the country were the cause of the majority of child marriages in Indonesia.
Therefore, efforts to improve socioeconomic conditions, promote education and increase awareness of the problem would help prevent child marriages, she said.
“We are also actually gambling with the [country’s] human capital. So, if we neglect [child marriage], we’ll end up with a low level of human resource development,” Rita said.
She also urged the government to draft a government regulation to regulate child marriage exemptions in courts, which have long been criticised as a loophole that allow child marriages.
Indonesia’s religious courts officially permitted more than 33,000 child marriages between January and June of this year, compared to nearly 22,000 throughout 2019, the Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection Ministry said last week, quoting Supreme Court data.
It is important to note that the minimum marriageable age for girls has been increased since last year, following an amendment to Marriage Law in September last year that increased the age from 16 to 19.
In response to the amendment, the Supreme Court in November issued a stricter regulation to provide judges with guidance in giving exemptions to allow children to be wed earlier than 19.
Child marriage has long been a common practice in many parts of the country. At least 22 provinces have recorded child marriage rates above the national average, according to the 2019 National Social and Economic Surveys (Susenas), including South Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, West Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi and West Nusa Tenggara.
Although the prevalence of child marriage among children below the age of 18 has decreased from 14.68 per cent in 2018 to 10.81 per cent last year, the percentage of children married under the age of 15 increased from 2018 to 2019, Susenas data showed.
THE JAKARTA POST/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
