Indonesian Government Targets to Reduce Child Marriage to 8.74 Percent

TheIndonesia.co - The Indonesian government targeted to reduce child marriage prevalence to 8.74 percent in 2024 and 6.94 percent in 2030. This is according to the Head of Sub-Directorate for Family Development of the Religious Affairs Ministry, Agus Suryo Suripto.

"We are targeting the child marriage rate to drop to 8.74 percent in 2024 and 6.94 percent in 2030," Suripto noted in a statement on Sunday, as quoted by Antara.

In order to achieve the target, Suripto said the Ministry has run a Guidance for School Age Adolescents (BRUS) program to socialize family planning education for teenagers.

"We hope this program can bring an impact to the nation's progress," he remarked.

Suripto mentioned that child marriage is a serious issue with negative impacts on children's health, education, and welfare. In the long term, it can also cause stunting, school dropout, and domestic violence cases.

He hopes that this program can also provide understanding to teenagers about the importance of getting married at the right time and maintaining reproductive health.

Based on a socio-economic survey from Statistics Indonesia (BPS), the number of child marriages in Indonesia is recorded at 1.2 million cases. Of this number, the proportion of women aged 20-24 years who were married before the age of 18 was 11.21 percent of the total number of children.

This means, around 1 in 9 women aged 20-24 years were married while still as children. This number is in contrast to men, where only 1 in 100 men aged 20-24 years were married as children.