Before Bloom
Indramayu, Indonesia — Many of her friends attend college, but Mimin spends her days raising her 1-year-old daughter.
That afternoon, at her relative’s house, she was taking care of her beloved one, playing with a small umbrella.
“My parents wanted to prevent extramarital pregnancy” said 23-year-old Mimin, explaining her reason of tying the knot so early.
As young as 16, right after graduating junior high school, she married her boyfriend of 2 years.
“I actually wanted to get a job first. But my parents were afraid of me being pregnant.”
She recalled that at schools, her parents were so worried about her relationship with her male then-classmate. Almost everyday she was told to protect herself from ‘unwanted things’, a very general Indonesian term referring to a taboo.
Mimin, who were born and raised in Indramayu, believes that many young boys and girls have committed extramarital sex, which she condemns as sinful.
“Right now, they are still doing ‘that’,” she said confidently.
Extramarital sex and pregnancy are taboos in muslim-majority Indonesia. If caught, girls might be disowned for shaming their families.
In some cases, the boy has to marry the girl as part of his responsibility.
That is why, without having to argue, Mimin followed her parents’ request.
The couple then had a very simple wedding celebration and have been together for 7 years now.
But following a cultural pressure is not easy. Young Mimin had to learn how to be a mother.
“I used to not understand what pregnancy is.”
When Mimin gave birth to her first child at 17, her body was not even 50 kgs. On the other hand, she was too young to understand how to raise a baby.
One night, her first daughter had convolutions with a 42-degree in Celsius fever. She was so in panic until her family told her to go to a hospital. Nevertheless, it was too late.
“I was so devastated after losing my first child.”
The saddest part for her was she does not really know what has happened.
The couple had to postpone their second baby. Until a year ago, when Mimin was 22, she gave birth to a healthy baby. This time the couple is better-prepared.
Rampant
There are thousands and thousands more girls like Mimin in Indonesia. A data from UNICEF shows that 14% of Indonesian girls are married before 18, and 1% are married before their 15th birthday.
The data also shows that the archipelago has the eighth-highest number of child brides in the world, with a total of 1,459,000 individuals, roughly similar as a population of Munich or Philadelphia.
Child marriage is found in all 34 provinces in Indonesia, recorded a data from National Statistics Agency. The highest percentage of girl brides found in South Kalimantan and Central Kalimantan with 39%. The lowest percentage is found in Jakarta capital region and Yogyakarta with 11%. While West Java, where Indramayu is, has 27%. (Go to an interactive map on Tableau)
A 2014 Child Protection Law in Indonesia clearly states that children is anyone who is 0 to 18 years old. Yet a 1974 Marriage Law allows a 16-year-old girl to get married, compared to 19-year-old limit for male counterpart. Senior high school students in Indonesia normally graduated at 18.
Even with that low age limit, Marriage Law allows parents to ask for further age dispensation in a court. Parents are required to submit a reason on why they want to marry their underage kids.
In Indramayu, the number of couple who received dispensation in 2016 are 354 and in 2017 are 287. Most parents submitted religion-related reasoning, such as avoiding extramarital sex, to get dispensation.
Age dispensation has always been a controversy. In 2018, a 17-year-old girl in Indramayu, who had married when she was 15-year-old, found dead. Police concluded that she was suffering from blood cancer.
But her parents have not received any autopsy result. Instead, they believe that their daughter was a victim of domestic violence from her 18-year-old husband, who married her daughter when he was 16-year-old.
The couple married underage after receiving age dispensation from the court.
A study from Plan International Indonesia in 2011 shows that 100% girls in child marriage has experienced domestic violence, 44% in high-frequency and 56% in low-frequency. The study was conducted in different cities in Indonesia, including Indramayu.
In 2015, a coalition of national NGOs challenged the Marriage Law to raise the age limit in the Constitutional Court. Yet the court refused the judicial review. Only one judge, the only woman among 9 judges, had a dissenting opinion and support the attempted revision.
Soon after, the coalition demanded the Indonesian government to issue a Government Regulation in Lieu of Law (Perppu) to prevent and abolish child marriage. The law is hoped to stipulate age limitation and restrict age dispensation.
The draft of the regulation has been delivered to Ministry of Religion, Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Protection, and Presidential Palace, yet after three years it has not been signed yet.
Frenia Nababan, from Coalition 18+, urged the government to pass the Perppu really soon.
“We hope that the regulation will change values in our society and restrict age dispensation. So if anyone under 18 wants to get married, it will be considered as sexual violence. No one will do that,” Frenia said.
In September 2019, after half-decade-long advocacy, lawmakers finally raise the age limit for female to 19, same as male.
Civic groups now shift their focus to the executive branch, they demand president to prepare a national strategy in abolishing child marriage.
They are also urging Ministry of Interior to push anti-child marriage regulation in all province, city, and district levels.
Factors
Despite the progress in law, child marriage is unlikely to end soon. Since cultural factor is still strong, said Waskenih, who got married at 14.
Waskenih had to marry because it is forbidden to refuse the first marriage proposal.
“That is a culture here. If you refuse the first, you will never get a husband anymore,” recalled Waskenih, who is now a 42-year-old.
A guy 2 years older from another village wanted to marry young Waskenih. She did not really know the man. Yet the guy asked his aunt, who then asked Waskenih’s mother.
But she was actually afraid and clueless. Almost every night she kept worrying about being pregnant and raising kids. It freaked her out. Waskenih never had sex with her husband.
She did not know that fulfilling her mother’s wish could be so stressful.
Within 3 months, she made her mind and wrote a divorce letter to her husband. Just a sentence:
“As if I were working in a field, I want to take a rest.”
“As if I were working in a field, I want to take a rest.”
“I did not talk to him in person. I put the letter beneath his pillow. I could not really tell my real reason. Why did I want to be separated,” she added.
Waskenih left to her parents’ house and got divorced soon after. She then worked as a domestic helper in the Middle East to earn and save money.
After she returned to Indonesia, when she was 20, she got married again. This time, she married a man she loves, not because of tradition.
“I married again when I was 20, as an adult. I have understood marriage more. I have a better understanding in mind about marriage, about having kids, all the risks.”
Driven by her experience, Waskenih now wants to change the culture. She has a message for young generation.
“I want that young generation have a full understanding about what marriage is all about. Taking care of the kids in the future. Also how to do household finance and everything.”
“Don’t follow my path. My children and my neighbors should not follow my path,” Waskenih said.
For years, women’s and children’s rights groups have been trying to change the culture by raising public awareness.
Change
Women Coalition of Indonesia (KPI) has been focusing on educating youths. KPI came to Indramayu 2 years ago, when almost no one realized that child marriage is a mistake.
“We did not really realized that there is a problem, we tend to ignore that. But after KPI came here, we are now more aware that child marriage is not acceptable,” recalled Liana, 22, a local youth.
Local youths have made their own group and start advocating with religious approach.
“We came to regular events like Mawlid (celebration of prophet Muhammad’s birthday). We gathered all youths and students. We also hold small parade or competition,” said Liana.
Liana, who is now attending college in Islamic education, wants to finish her degree before getting married.
“I really hope that all girls become successful persons first. They can get married later. Wedding is an easy task. If we have our partner, we can just proceed to the wedding. But education is a different, there is a process that cannot be interrupted,” she explained.
Marriage may distracts someone from education, she said. And having a good education may help better living when getting married later.
“As far as I know, no child bride nor groom is having a good life. Having baby is not something free. We need to buy milk and food. After few years, the baby needs to go to school,” she said.
I ask her what she want to be after graduating.
“Islamic teacher,” she replied and smiled.
Rescue
Earlier this year, a 15-year-old girl in Indramayu was saved from a wedding arranged by his father. His father accused her of having sex with her boyfriend, her classmate. Therefore, they have to tie the knot before he loses his face.
But Carman, a district (kecamatan) officer in Sliyeg district, Indramayu, heard about the plan and took action.
“She is on his second year at senior high school. That’s why we did not let her to marry. She’s also underage,” Carman said early August.
It is important for the girl to continue her education, Carman added.
“Nobody knows someone’s future. Who knows? If she is graduated from high school she might have a better chance in the society,” added him.
Not all public servants in Indonesia is aware of child marriage. But Carman, who knows a local branch of KPI, has learned a bit about the issue.
“If the bride and the groom were married, there are a lot of economical needs to meet. But the groom was jobless. It may lead to child divorce. Or if the bride is pregnant, their children might be not fully taken care of. We do not want that,” he said.
Only two days before the planned wedding, he spoke to KPI in Indramayu, which he believes might help.
Enis from KPI Indramayu came to the rescue. She managed to talk to a local government child protection agency and met the girl’s father the next day.
“We talked heart to heart to his father. We could not really just say ‘please cancel the wedding’. But we said ‘we know that we are not your relative but same as you, we want to be with you in educating and protecting our children,” she recalled.
With the father’s permission, Enis met the girl, which bursted into tears when telling Enis that she really does not want to get married.
He accused his daughter had lost her virginity, which Indonesians perceived to the hymen breaking after having sexual intercourse. While there are other ways of breaking the hymen, the girl agreed to take a virginity test. Later that afternoon, it was proven that she never had sex.
“What he afraid of, what he accused his daughter of, were not proven. So I said, ‘it is up to your family now on how to deal with this situation’,” said Enis.
The girl’s father were hesitating before he learned the consequences.
“Do you want to take responsibility in feeding the couple? If the two get married, it is possible that parents give them allowance. Since the groom is still in high school. And if the bride got pregnant, there are risks,” Enis said, recalling what she said to him.
“From what I told him, he said, ‘that’s true’.”
The wedding was immediately cancelled and the two teenagers are now continuing their education in senior high school.
System
But child marriage is not just about law and awareness. Darwinih of Women Coalition of Indonesia (KPI) identifies two systematical problem.
“The main factor is poverty. Children are considered as assets by their parents. If someone rich wants to marry their daughter, parents would be like ‘OK, just marry her’. They thought it would remove the economic burden of the family. But actually it won’t,” she explained.
Indramayu has been suffering from a slow economic growth. Last year, the city’s growth recorded as low as 1.45% low behind the national growth at 5.17%. With more than 1.7 million people, 13% of the city’s population is living under the poverty line. That’s more than 230 thousand people.
On Mimin’s case, her household is struggling to make ends meet.
A junior high school graduate, her husband works as a hard labor in a local market. This is the same job since the two got married.
He works from midnight until morning, lifting produces to kiosks. During afternoon, he would sleep and take a rest, letting Mimin taking care of their baby.
His earning was kept secret. But a minimum monthly wage in Indramayu, a city where they live, is 2.1 millions Rupiah or around 150 US Dollars. Hard labors often earn less then the city’s official bar.
Several studies have shown that child marriage is resulted from poverty and resulted in poverty. Many have been trapped in that cycle.
Yet another factor to be addressed is a lack of education, added Darwinih.
“Many girls in rural areas could not attend senior high school. There’s no access to higher education. This situation made it difficult for parents.”
In many parts of Indonesia like Indramayu, some parents have to choose to either marry their girls young or send them overseas to be a migrant worker.
The Indonesian government has ambitiously pledged to end child marriage in 2030.
But without addressing poverty and education, will the situation change anytime soon?***
*submitted as a final project at the Asian Center for Journalism (ACFJ).
