Gelorakan Gerakan Keluarga Maslahat, Kemenag Focus 4 Isu Besar

Illustration of the Ministry of Religion or the Ministry of Religion. (Between)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Religion (Kemenag) is targeting four crucial issues in the Nahdlatul Ulama Family Movement (GKMNU) program. The four issues are stunting, weak family resilience, child marriage, and divorce. "These four big issues need to be addressed in collaboration with various stakeholders. Therefore, the Ministry of Religion cooperates with GKMNU to handle the four crucial issues," said the Director of Bina KUA and Family Ministry of Religion, Sakinah Zainal Mustam, in his statement, Friday, December 1. This community movement is a program initiated by the Nahdlatul Ulama Executive Board to create family resilience at the grassroots level. In its execution, PBNU collaborated with a number of ministries/agencies as well as a number of other agencies. The Ministry of Religion is one of the partners, because a number of work programs intersect with those in GKMNU.

The collaboration between the Ministry of Religion and GKMNU has started since October 2023, targeting 20,277 villages with participation of 1,013,850 people.

This program was first implemented in five provinces, namely Central Java, DI Yogyakarta, East Java, West Java, and Banten, while outside Java it will be carried out in stages. Zainal highlighted the number of divorce cases that occurred in Indonesia. Referring to data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), the increase in divorce cases in Indonesia reached 516,344 in 2022, up 77.03 percent in the last three years. According to him, a number of factors have contributed to divorce rates such as economic issues, adultery, and drugs.

Likewise with stunting. The problem of stunting is triggered by the health condition of mothers and children, such as malnutrition and anemia.

The Ministry of Religion together with GKMNU, he said, had a big role in building a strong family. Zainal stated the importance of involving thousands of GKMNU cadres in the regions to accelerate the resolution of the problem. "We are collaborating with the Nahdlatul Ulama Family Movement Task Force (GKMNU) and the Aisyiyah Central Executive to improve the quality of family resilience," he said. Meanwhile, the Head of Sub-Directorate for Family Development Sakinah Agus Suryo Suripto explained that GKMNU will play an implementative role involving cadres at the village level to collaborate with Islamic Religious and Penghulu counselors in the KUA. "In the implementation stage of the program, family guidance will be given at the village level. They will collaborate with stakeholders there," said Suryo. According to him, the GKMNU program includes principles of justice, balance, moderation, and amar ma'ruf nahi munkar.

"And it aims to form a happy family, have morals, and play an important role in society," he said.