Reducing Child Marriage Rates, Practical Guide Launched

Child marriage must be prevented and stopped because it will become a time bomb that will destroy the child's future.

KOMPAS/SONYA HELLEN SINOMBOR

The atmosphere of the launch of the Practical Guide for Implementing the National Strategy for Preventing Child Marriage (Stranas PPA) in the Regions, Tuesday (30/4/2024), in Jakarta.

JAKARTA, KOMPAS — Efforts to eliminate and prevent child marriage in Indonesia must continue. Even though statistically the number of child marriages has continued to decline in the last three years (2021-2023) from 10.35 percent to 6.92 percent, there are still many cases of child marriage that are not recorded.

After launching the National Strategy for Preventing Child Marriage (Stranas PPA) in 2020, the government has now published a Practical Guide to Implementing the Stranas PPA in the Regions. The hope is that with these guidelines, efforts to prevent and eliminate child marriage in each region will be carried out more intensively.

"In implementing the Stranas PPA guidelines to reduce child marriage rates, the government cannot work alone. It is important to have synergy and collaboration with stakeholders at the provincial to village levels," said Minister of Women's Empowerment and Child Protection (PPPA) I Gusti Ayu Bintang Darmawati in a virtual speech at the launch of the Practical Guide for Implementing Stranas PPA in Regions on Tuesday (30/4/2024) in Jakarta.

KOMPAS/SONYA HELLEN SINOMBOR

The atmosphere of the launch of the Practical Guide for Implementing the National Strategy for Preventing Child Marriage (Stranas PPA) in the Regions, Tuesday (30/4/2024), in Jakarta.

The Minister of Women's Empowerment and Child Protection emphasizes that child marriage violates children's rights and is a complex issue with various causal factors that result in many negative impacts on children's health, psychological well-being, economic status, education, and social life, as well as the potential for experiencing various acts of violence.

That is why Stranas PPA was issued to ensure children's rights to survival, growth and development, as well as their right to protection against violence and discrimination, and as a concrete step to reduce child marriage rates.

The PPA National Strategy prepared by the Ministry of National Development Planning/Bappenas together with the PPPA Ministry supported by partners consists of five main strategies, namely optimizing children's capacity; an environment that supports the prevention of child marriage; accessibility and expansion of services; strengthening regulations and institutions; as well as strengthening stakeholder coordination.

The launch of the Practical Guide for Stranas PPA was attended by Woro Srihastuti Sulistyaningrum (Deputy Coordinator for Child, Women, and Youth Quality), Pribudiarta Nur Sitepu (Deputy for Child Rights Fulfillment at the Ministry of Women's Empowerment and Child Protection), Suharyanto (Acting Director for Regional Government Affairs IV at the Ministry of Home Affairs), Sanchi Davis (First Secretary for Development Cooperation, Australian Embassy Jakarta), and Feker Bayoudh (Deputy Representative Operations at UNICEF).

Also read: Child Marriage Time Bomb

KOMPAS/SONYA HELLEN SINOMBOR

The atmosphere of the launch of the Practical Guide for Implementing the National Strategy for Preventing Child Marriage (Stranas PPA) in the Regions, Tuesday (30/4/2024), in Jakarta.

Woro stated that the decline in child marriage statistics approaching the 2020 Sustainable Development Goals target should be appreciated. "Statistically, the numbers have indeed gone down. Unfortunately, we also have to acknowledge that there are cases of child marriage that are not recorded. So, statistically, they may not have been captured yet," she explained.

Therefore, he invites all parties in the region to implement Stranas PPA with practical guidelines in the region and incorporate it into action plans at the regional level according to their respective conditions and characteristics.

"If the question earlier was whether there have been any impacts from Stranas, I see that there have been. So in many regions, even though there were no practical guidelines at the time, they automatically tried to implement Stranas PPA, whether in the form of regional strategies or action plans," said Woro.

Also read: Children and Young People Must Know the Risks

Not only that, several regions are also innovating to reduce the number of child marriages, such as in South Sulawesi. However, the challenge faced is that there are still unregistered cases of child marriages, making them hidden statistically.

"That's why we, together with the Ministry of PPPA, have prepared a practical guide, actually more to increase the awareness of regional governments, to see what the actual situation in each region is regarding child marriage," he said.

Local governments must be continually encouraged to not only focus on the issue of child marriage but also to link it to all other issues such as malnutrition, maternal and child mortality, poverty, and education.

KOMPAS/SONYA HELLEN SINOMBOR

The atmosphere of the launch of the Practical Guide for the Implementation of the National Strategy for Child Marriage Prevention (Stranas PPA) in the Regions, on Tuesday (30/4/2024), in Jakarta. Deputy of Child Rights Fulfillment of the Ministry of Women's Empowerment and Child Protection, Pribudiarta Nur Sitepu, handed over the book to the Deputy Representative Operations of Unicef, Feker Bayoudh.

In addition to the launch of the strategic guide, the event also featured a discussion with several speakers, including Aidy Furgan, Head of the Education and Culture Agency of West Nusa Tenggara who shared stories about open schools in NTB as a fulfillment of rights in handling at-risk children of marriage.

Aidy discusses the Open High School Program in West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), which is an emergency solution for school dropouts and those who are beyond school age. The learning strategy is designed in an open pattern (integrated learning services provided directly into regular schools), providing learning opportunities in locations outside of the regular school environment, through mentoring, as well as online and offline learning.