Legal Policy of Child Marriage In the Covid-19 Pandemic Period

Abstract

The increase in marriage dispensation applications that occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic also caused the high number of child marriage. Nevertheless, this has been strictly required in Law Number 16 of 2019 concerning Amendments to Law Number 1 of 1974 concerning Marriage (Marital Law), the minimum age limit for men and women is 19 years, and requirements of irregularities for this age that must meet urgent criteria and sufficient support evidence. This is done, to reduce underage child marriages as a form of enforcing the principle of children's best interests. This paper describes the complexity of underage children's marriage during the Covid-19 pandemic period, as a convenience requirement of marriage dispensation has been set rigid in the Marriage act. The method used in this paper is normative by using several approaches: the statute approach, conceptual approach, and case approach. The results of the government's policy during the Covid-19 pandemic period which brought massive changes to the community's order had an impact on the collapse of the family economy. This resulted in the mass number of the child's marriages in the pandemic period. The research findings of this study deliver to children's rights violations through child marriages. The risk of decreasing individual economies, maternal and infant health, and household violence become unavoidable considering the psychological conditions of children who are immature in marriage.

Tick tick boom: The rise of child marriage in Indonesia during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…The current study also found that up to 65% of the child marriage dispensation cases (absolute numbers) in this study were registered on Java Island as it is the most populated island. This finding was also observed before the pandemic where West Java showed the highest absolute numbers of child marriages in 2015 (Subchi, Arsadani, Helmi, & Faridho, 2021). The high number of child marriage dispensations might be associated with the numbers of COVID-19 cases in Java, where the highest positive case numbers were also recorded on this Island.…”

“…However, despite this comprehensive information, this study only analysed data from the Muslim population and could not provide specific information like the age of grooms and brides as well as the Judge's decisions/verdicts as this detailed information was not uploaded all to the Supreme Court's databases. One of the national media mass reported that 97% of the applications were granted with 60% of them involving children under 18 years old (Subchi et al, 2021). In addition, this quantitative study could also not be able to explain the process of the Judges' decisionmaking.…”

Evaluation of Evidence in Electronic Criminal Case Trials

“…This study uses secondary data in the form of laws and regulations, literature books related to research material (Melinda & Djajaputra, 2021). The data obtained was then analyzed using a qualitative analysis method presented in the form of description (Subchi et al, 2021).…”

Increasing Child Marriage in Indonesia during the Covid-19 Pandemic: What Causes It?

“…The findings from Subchi et al (2021) revealed that the high number of child marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic was due to the granting of an early marriage dispensation request. In fact, strictly speaking the minimum age limit for men and women is 19 years which is regulated by Law Number 16 of 2019 concerning Amendments to Law Number 1 of 1974 concerning marriage.…”