Determinants of Child Marriage in Indonesia : A Systematic Review

Early marriage is an ongoing phenomenon and is becoming more prevalent. The lack of public knowledge and lack of awareness of early child marriage leaves children deeply traumatized. More than 1 million (1.2 million) women aged 20-24 were married for the first time before the age of 18. The purpose of this study was to provide an overview of the causal characteristics of child marriage in Indonesia. The method used in this study was a systematic review conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) rules. The literature search was performed across multiple journal sites or online articles such as Google Scholar, PubMed, and Science Direct by entering the keywords 'Determinants of child marriage AND Indonesia'. There is a prevalent belief among parents and youth is that marrying off young girls preserves family honor. Additionally, poverty and economic instability make child marriage more socially acceptable. Other contributing factors include limited access to education and societal norms that promote marriage after puberty and within the same ethnic group. Despite existing laws regulating the minimum age for marriage, enforcement remains problematic. The review of nine articles indicated that child marriage in Indonesia is influenced by beliefs, limited access to education, culture, environmental factors, and gaps in legal enforcement.

INTRODUCTION

Children, according to WHO in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), are all human beings less than 18 years of age unless the applicable law in the country determines the age of adulthood earlier¹¹. Whereas in Indonesia, the regulation of Law no. 25 of 2014 states that a child is any individual whose age has not reached 18 years, including children who are still in the womb²². Child marriage is defined as a formal or informal marriage, where one or both of the partners are under 18 years of age³³.

Early marriage is an iceberg phenomenon that continues to occur and is increasingly widespread. Lack of public knowledge and understanding of perceptions of early child marriage results in children experiencing deep trauma because of the many inhibiting factors due to such marriages, such as reproductive damage, disrupted health, and internal violence in households, because children are not ready to settle down. Factors consistently associated with child marriage in South Asia, including rural location, low levels of education, poor economic background, mass media, and religion (Hinduism and Islam in some countries), are less exposed. Maternal health factors resulting from child marriage include low availability of antenatal care services, low institutional births, and low delivery support by qualified obstetricians⁴⁴.

In the revision of the 1974 Marriage Law no. 1, it is stated that the requirement for a man and a woman to be able to enter into a marriage is that they are both 19 years old. The difficulty of preventing early marriage or the rise of early marriage is due to the presence of permissible dispensations, such as children aged 16 years may marry as long as they have permission from their parents and local court. In addition, many early marriages are carried out in secret by way of unregistered marriage or are already pregnant before marriage⁵⁵.

More than 1 million (1.2 million) women aged 20-24 were married for the first time before the age of 18. Meanwhile, there were 61.3 thousand women who held their first marriage before they were 15 years old⁶⁶. In Indonesia, the province with the highest prevalence is West Nusa Tenggara, with 16.23 percent⁷⁷.

The impact of early marriage can be observed in various dimensions of life, so it is necessary to know the causative factors. This needs to be done to prevent an increase in the incidence of early marriage⁸⁸. Sociocultural factors influence the misconduct that leads to child marriage, especially among girls. The factors contributing to child marriage include the lack of role of community leaders (village officials), lack of role of health workers, age, education, knowledge, household finances, parenting, and promiscuity^9,10910. Religious beliefs also contribute as a factor. For example, in a study by Rofika and Hariastuti (2020), when a woman is in a trance, she has to be married to stop the trance⁹⁹.

Until now, child marriage has been an important problem in Indonesia. The factors causing early marriage are different in each community area. This is influenced by geography, economy, society, culture, and religion. The negative impact of marriage and giving birth at a young age is the risk of premature birth, low birth weight (LBW), and even maternal death caused by the unpreparedness of women in conceiving and giving birth. Child marriage also has an impact on the low quality of the family, both in terms of psychological unpreparedness in dealing with social and economic problems in the household, and the risk of being mentally unprepared which results in severe depression¹¹¹¹.

Therefore, research on child marriage in Indonesia is important to do as the child marriage rate in Indonesia remains high (10.82%)¹²¹². The purpose of this study was to provide an overview of the causal characteristics of child marriage in Indonesia, to determine the influencing variables, and to analyze the tendency towards child marriage in Indonesia.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The method used in this research was a systematic review, which was conducted following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) rules and following the author's topic regarding Determinants of Child Marriage in Indonesia. A literature search was carried out through several journal sites or online articles, such as Google Scholar, PubMed, and Science Direct, by entering the keywords "Determinants of child marriage AND Indonesia". Of the 45.522 articles found based on these keywords, the authors filtered them based on full-text criteria, articles in the 2021-2023 year range, and articles in Indonesian and English. The authors decided to use only articles from the last 2 years because the authors wanted to focus on discussing the implementation results of the 2019 revision of the Marriage Law. The next stage was the screening of the articles based on predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1.PRISMA Flow Diagram

RESULTS

No	Authors	Title	Study Design	Sample	Main Findings
1	Heribertus Rinto Wibowoa, Muliani Ratnaningsih, Nicholas J Goodwina, Derry Fahrizal Ulumb, Emilie Minnick (2021)1212	One household, two worlds: Differences of perception towards child marriage among adolescent children and adults in Indonesia	A cross-sectional study using a quantitative survey.	Participants consisted of two groups; Parents or caregivers in households with children ages 13-15 and youth