The Fuss Of Child Marriage From Aisha Weddings, Expert: How Is Child Sex Outside Of Marriage?

Wedding Illustration (Photo: Jeremy Wong Weddings / Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Forensic psychology expert, Reza Indragiri Amriel responds to the Aisha Weddings case, a promotional service holding child marriage through their website.

This site caused a lot of protests in the community for allegedly violating children's rights.

According to Reza, the campaign against child marriage is a good thing. However, there are other issues that need attention. It is child sex outside of marriage.

"I have long questioned the absence of the state with equal weight to pay attention and suppress sex among children outside of marriage", Reza said in his statement, Thursday, February 11.

Reza believes that the number of children who have sex outside of marriage is far more than children who marry at a young age.

"Sex outside of marriage is also one of the causes of child marriage. So, it is not appropriate to view child marriage as an isolated problem from other problems", he said.

From this case, Reza questioned the absence of the state with equal weight to pay attention to and suppress sex outside of marriage, including among children.

"Therefore, as long as the phenomenon of sex outside of marriage does not receive the attention of the state, then pregnancy also occurs outside of marriage, do not expect the campaign to prevent child marriage will achieve its goals", he said.

Aisha Weddings became a mass conversation on Twitter. The wedding organizer (WO) was criticized for offering child marriage packages.

In an advertisement on the official website, Aisha Weddings offers wedding packages for brides in the age range 12-21 years. "All Muslim women want to be devout and obedient to Allah SWT and their husband. To be pleasing to Allah and their husband, they must be married at the age of 12-21 years and not more than that", reads the Aisha Weddings ad.

Deputy Chairman of the Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) Rita Pranawati suspected that Aisha Weddings' website violated Law Number 16 of 2019 concerning Amendments to Law 1 Number 1974 concerning Marriage.

According to Rita, Aisha Weddings also violated Law Number 35 of 2014 concerning Child Protection and Law Number 21 of 2007 concerning Eradication of the Crime of Trafficking in Persons (TPPO).

Because, said Rita, the act of the wedding organizer to marry off minors was a violation of children's rights.

"On the site, there are pictures of children, then there is a statement of the child's marriage aged 12 to 21. That clearly violates children's rights", said Rita to VOI.