WUNRN
Indonesia – Constitutional Court Rejects Petition to Raise Girls’
Minimum Marriage Age to 18 Years
By Rachel Middleton
- June 25, 2015
Indonesia's
Constitutional Court has rejected an application to raise the marriageable age
for girls from 16 to 18 years and to amend a law to allow the recognition of
inter-faith marriages in the country.
The judicial review
request was filed by several women and child rights groups hoping to reduce the
number of underaged marriages. Indonesia has one of the highest underage
marriages in the world, Jakarta Post
reported.
According to an NGO Girls not Brides,
an estimated one in every five girls in Indonesia is married before the age of
18.
The plaintiffs, in
their request, said there was a need to adjust the marriageable age for girls
to 18 because 16 years remained within the definition of a child in the laws on
child protection, pornography, manpower and others. The Marriage Law in
Indonesia states that 16 years is the minimum age for marriage for females. For
boys, the minimum age is 19.
According to Jakarta Globe,
six percent of boys and 13.7 percent of girls aged 15-19 are already married,
according to the Central Statistics Agency's 2010 census.
“Raising the minimum
age is similar to delaying marriage, while marriage is in fact a solution to
preventing free sex.”
Muslim organisation
Nahdlatul Ulama's Ahmad Isomuddin
At the hearing on 23
June, the Indonesian Ulema Council and two of the largest Muslim organisations,
Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiya told the court to reject the judicial review
request.
"The provision
on the minimum age of 16 is consistent with Islamic teachings," the
council's leader Amidhan Shaberah said.
Nahdlatul Ulama's
Ahmad Isomuddin said: "Marriage before adulthood is allowed by some
[Muslim] scholars, but [they] prohibit sexual intercourse [out of wedlock] for
minors. Raising the minimum age is similar to delaying marriage, while marriage
is in fact a solution to preventing free sex."
“Progress in areas
such as nutrition and technology may speed up a child's sexual drive, which
should be channeled through legal marriage as ruled by religion, so that a
child is not born out of wedlock.”
- Indonesian
Constitutional Court
Muhammadiyah in its
argument said that a Koran passage states that those who were considered mature
enough to get married were those who already had the urge to raise a family.
The court in its
ruling, noted the different interpretations on the marriageable age across
different faiths, arguing that changing the marriageable age is part of the
legislature's authority.
It said progress in areas
such as nutrition and technology may speed up a child's sexual drive, which "should
be channelled through legal marriage as ruled by religion, so that a child is
not born out of wedlock."
The only female on
the nine-member panel of judges, Maria Farida Indrati, in dissenting, cited the
dangers of child marriages, saying that "the understanding [...] of human
rights has progressed far beyond the time when the Marriage Law was
passed."
On interfaith
marriages, the plaintiffs had requested that the clause in the Marriage law
stating that a marriage is legal according to religious rules be dropped as it
has given rise to problems for inter-faith marriages.
The court however ruled that "religion determines the validity of marriage while the law determines the validity of administration ..."