BANGKOK (TrustLaw) – A recent Indonesian study on adolescent sexuality has found widespread practice of girls marrying in their teens, some below the legal age of 16, an article by the Asia Foundation said.
The research was conducted by Aisyiyah, the women’s wing of Indonesia’s second-largest Islamic organisation Muhammadiyah, through questionnaires distributed to 717 students aged 14 to 21 at various schools in Yogyakarta’s Bantul district and followed up with focus group discussions.
According to data collected by Aisyiyah, in 2000 there were only 10 requests for age dispensations – permission for marriages below the age of 20 – from the Bantul Religious Court. By 2010, there were 115 such dispensations.
Focus group discussions revealed that the number one reason for such marriages was unwanted pregnancy.
“The research underlines that unwanted pregnancies occur due to youngsters’ – and their parents’ – lack of proper knowledge about sexual and reproductive health,” the report said.
Other reasons include poverty, traditional attitudes such as concerns of daughters becoming an old maid, the lack of outreach by village and sub-district officials to promote a later age of marriage, and lack of funding for such outreach efforts.
The study “indicates that adolescents have very little knowledge about their bodies and their sexuality, and that this correlates with a high rate of underage marriages,” the report added.
It said education on reproductive health is essential to stop this phenomenon and urges an end to discrimination of medical family-planning services which are currently only accessible to married couples.
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