The COVID-19 Pandemic Has An Impact On The High Rate Of Child Marriage

JAKARTA - The Minister of Women's Empowerment and Child Protection (Kemen PPPA) I Gusti Ayu Bintang Darmawati said that the COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on high cases of child marriage or marriage.

"It is undeniable that one of the effects of this pandemic is the high number of child marriage cases," said Bintang at the Coordination Meeting of the Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) regarding the results of monitoring the preparation of face-to-face learning during the pandemic, Jakarta, reported by Antara, Monday November 30th.

He said, between January and June, the Indonesian Religious Court had received around 34 thousand applications for dispensation of marriage submitted by prospective brides who were not yet 19 years old.

Bintang assessed that the high number of child marriages is one of the reasons for the increasing number of children dropping out of school.

This condition, he said, is a concern for the PPPA Ministry and other parties. For this reason, KPPA is committed to making efforts to reduce the rate of child marriage a priority issue for the ministry in 2020-2024.

On that occasion, Bintang also emphasized his support for face-to-face learning plans (PTM) in the Even Semester of the 2020-2021 Academic Year, because ineffective distance learning (PJJ) is thought to be one of the triggers for high cases of school dropouts leading to cases of marriage. child.

However, he underlined the need for certainty that any learning that will be decided by the local government (Pemda), schools and parents and students must be oriented towards child health and safety, especially in the midst of the unresolved COVID-19 pandemic.

"Both PJJ and face-to-face must be oriented towards the best interests of the child," he said.

He said, efforts to create a situation that is conducive to children requires the participation of many parties.

Therefore, Bintang expects cooperation from all, so that efforts to prevent child marriage in the future can be done as well as possible.

"The PPPA Ministry certainly cannot work alone. This can only be achieved with good cooperation from the central government, local governments, community institutions, the business world and even from the community, schools and families themselves to socialize the prevention of child marriage," he said. Star.