Indonesia fighting towards happier and safer children

JAKARTA: Indonesian children remain vulnerable to abuses, including in the form of early marriages.

Ahead of National Children’s Day yesterday, it was learned that child marriages made up 23% of all marriages in Indonesia last year.

The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) said its survey showed the figure had decreased slightly from a little over 24% in 2010 from a sample of 300,000 households across all 34 provinces.

Here lies Indonesia’s painful contrast – they rage over unspeakable crimes against children, but fall silent over the endorsed rape of minors in the religiously sanctioned institution of marriage.

In May, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo signed a regulation in lieu of law stipulating harsher penalties than the existing maximum of 20 years against child rapists and repeat sex offenders. The convicted now face chemical castration and even death; the regulation was passed amid uproar at news of the gang rape and murder of girls in a number of areas.

Yet statutory rape remains legal; the minimum marriage age for girls is 16 under the 1974 Marriage Law, which the Constitutional Court refused to change in the face of a judicial review.

The outdated law precedes the law on child protection, in which children are defined as those under the age of 18. Anyone with a fat purse approaching poor parents with a 15-year-old girl can easily take her, and lie about her actual age for the clerics who marry them.

Parents and elders cite customs or taboos in rejecting marriage proposals, ending in pulling girls out of schools, mostly closing opportunities to complete basic education.

It is clear, then, that children still face threats to their well-being under the laws and within supposedly safe spaces for children at school and at home.

This year, Culture and Education Minister Anies Baswedan has attempted to stop bullying and violence in the annual hazing rituals.

He renamed the orientation week “introduction to the school environment” and banned the customary involvement of students, to end the annual practice that has harmed and killed too many children.

But few students will report continued abuse by seniors for fear of reprisals. School managements have often been dismissive of reports of what they term “child’s play”, fortunately leading to the replacement of a number of principals.

Indonesia has signed on to the Sustainable Development Goals, which include the goal to end violence, exploitation and trafficking against children, child marriage and trafficking.

Beyond curbing criminals Indonesia must stand up to the sick minds who continue to justify exploitation of children by citing religious teachings or time-honoured customs. — The Jakarta Post / Asia News Network