Improving Girls' Rights in Early Marriage in the Indonesian Legal System

Abstract

Indonesia ranks 10th in the world of child marriage and second in Southeast Asia. The Indonesian government anticipated this by requiring the age of marriage to be 19 for girls, but in the reality, this regulation has not been effective in preventing it, as marriage of girls under 19 in Indonesia is a social problem, despite the detriment of girls. This is the reality, so it is necessary to conduct comprehensive research aimed at finding solutions to the problem of girl-child marriage. The rights of girls must be protected, especially the rights in marriage. This research is a type of legal sociology with an empirical approach. Looking for data on the fact that girls are getting married. The conceptual approach is based on the doctrine of the issue of girl-child marriage, and the normative approach is the study of norms for the protection of girls. Technical analysis is qualitative descriptive. The results showed that poverty, promiscuity, and cultural factors were the causes, as well as legal factors that were unable to prevent it due to the incompatibility of Article 7 paragraph (1) with paragraph (2) of the Indonesian Marriage Law, thus building a new concept of "Peace in the Protection of Women's Rights" as a new concept of thinking to overcome girl child marriage. The government should set up a multisectoral Independent Institute for the Prevention and Protection of Women's Rights, as an alternative to address the problem of underage girl marriage in Indonesia, to create a quality generation of the nation.