If Only the Clock Could be Turned Back

KOMPAS/ISMAIL ZAKARIA

LA (17) carries her child AAC (8 months) in a village in East Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, last Friday (16/4/2021). In his very young age, LA has been married three times and divorced twice.

The searing heat of the sun in East Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, forced a number of residents to take shelter for a moment’s break. At a hut, a young woman was seated with her 8-month-old toddler on her lap.

“This is my child from my third marriage,” LA (17) said. She lives 26 kilometers northwest of Selong, the regency’s capital.

At her age, LA should still be in senior high school. Instead, she has become an underage mother and got married three times in as many years.

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For LA, marriage has not changed things for the better. Having dropped out from school, she finds her life has turned gloomy.

“As a saying goes, if only I could turn back the clock. I would not have chosen this path of life. I would love to go to school and, if possible, get a bachelor’s degree,” she said.

Well aware that there’s no way back, she now hopes her child will not have the same fate of getting married at such a fledgling age.

As a saying goes, if only I could turn back the clock. I would not have chosen this path of life.

“She must go to school as long as possible for a better life. [She] must not stumble into the hell I am in now,” she said, wiping off her tears.

A matter of moths

LA’s first marriage took place when she was just 14 years old, following her acquaintance with a 20-year-old boyfriend that began by phone.

“We dated for five months and decided to get married, just a few days before I received the notification of my school graduation. Getting married was all I wanted at the time,” she said.

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After getting divorced, LA stayed at a friend’s house in a neighboring village. There, she met her friend’s brother, who later became her second husband.

KOMPAS/ISMAIL ZAKARIA

LA (black hijab, left), who is just 17 years old, accompanied by her mother NR (48), puts her son AAC (8 months) to sleep on a cloth swing hanging from a berugak (hut) in their residence in a village in East Lombok, Nusa Tenggara West, last Friday (16/4/2021).

That marriage lasted only four months, as her husband was found to have an affair with another woman. He was also said to have committed domestic violence.

“When he got angry, he would throw at me whatever was near him,” said LA, who then decided to return to her parents.

In 2020, she married a widower from Mataram. Like her previous two marriages, the third has not improved her situation. She said she had to endure excruciating conditions due to poverty.

When he got angry, he would throw at me whatever was near him.

They live in a vacated house of a relative who works in Malaysia and are fully dependent on LA’s financial support.

Forced to marry

S and NH, who live in Central Lombok, married in September 2020 when they were only 15 and 12 years old, respectively, and still in junior high school.

They got to know each other through social media. Four days later, they became husband and wife. NH’s parents insisted on their marriage after finding out that S had accompanied NH home late at night after they had walked around.

The marriage lasted only five months.

In Lombok, several communities adhere to the tradition of merariq, a strict ethics code that prescribes marriage for a girl who goes out with a boyfriend and returns home late at night.

“We tried to discuss [the situation], but the girl’s parents did not accept it. We took NH home, but her parents brought her back here,” S’s aunt Rohani said.

Also read : Eliminating Child Marriage

S and NH had no choice but to discontinue their school and get married, only to separate five months later, after their togetherness was marked by bickering. Cases of underage marriage are also found in other regions.

During the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, numerous children have dropped out of school in West Java’s Indramayu regency and got married due to either economic problems or unwanted pregnancy.

KOMPAS/ISMAIL ZAKARIA

A mother holding her baby during the inauguration of the Covid-19 Emergency Women\'s School Radio "Nina Bayan" in Sukadana Village, Bayan, North Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, Thursday (15/4/2021). In addition to broadcasting information about Covid-19, the radio is also a campaign medium to prevent child marriage which always occurs in North Lombok.

Several youngsters have applied with the Religious Court for marriage, such as R and N – both 18 years old from Gabuswetan Diatrict-- who came accompanied by the former’s elder sister, Sri Suryati.

“N is already (pregnant), so they must be married,” Sri said. R’s mother has already passed away, while his father is ill.

The ‘forced’ marriage has denied R and N, both junior high school graduates, the opportunity to continue their education. When asked whether going back to school had ever crossed their mind, both looked down before shaking their heads.

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N said it was her choice to become a housemaid, and R said he was committed to working for the sake of his wife and children.

In several regencies of South Kalimantan, child marriage has contributed to a surge in marriages registered at religious courts in 2020, with Martapura (Banjar) seeing an increase of 133.67 percent, Amuntai (Hulu Sungai Utara) of 216.98 percent and Barabai (Hulu Sungai Tengah) of 132 percent in 2020.

In Jember regency of East Java, there were only 100 to 330 such marriage registrations a year between 2017 and 2019, before that figure jumped to 1,442 in 2020.

N is already (pregnant), so they must be married

Child marriage is a fragmented union between fledgling and unprepared spouses, who get married for various reasons.

Because of the children’s unpreparedness for building a family, underage marriage potentially leads to various problems later on.

If there are no preventive measures, school dropouts, divorces, domestic violence, poverty and reproductive health problems will continue to haunt the victims of underage marriage.

This article was translated by Musthofid.