The practice of child marriage: A profile and policy advocacy for Indonesian government

Abstract

Child marriage is one of the more frequent social problems in developing countries, especially in Indonesia; the government is hardly concerned about this and relates it to population control. This has the potential to escalate into a serious problem that will symmetrically affect the economy if the number of child marriages continues to increase. This study aimed to apply a profile analysis approach to measure the significant difference and to understand the characteristics of child marriages in each Indonesian province. The country is divided into four regions based on the main development area over 4 years from 2016 to 2019. The findings from the parallel hypothetical test suggest that the child marriage profile from each region is not parallel, and each region has its unique characteristics. Therefore, appropriate policies should be introduced separately for each region, such as enhanced education quality, social assistance and protection programs for children, social participation models, and collaborative governance-based city/village programs. The most important conclusions: policy advocacy to reduce the practice of child marriage for governments everywhere, including Indonesia is carried out through good planning and implementation of child marriage prevention policies will increase children’s productivity for their future lives.