Child Marriage Case In NTB, 2 Fathers Become Suspects Immediately Tried In Mataram

Marriage illustration. (Unsplash-Priskilla Du Preez)

West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) Regional Police (Polda) investigators handed over two suspects in the case of child marriage to the public prosecutor at the Mataram District Attorney (Kejari).

"Yes, today we handed over two suspects in cases of child marriage along with evidence to the Mataram Prosecutor's Office," said Head of the Sub-Directorate of Youth, Children and Women (Renakta) General Criminal Investigation (Reskrimum) of the NTB Police AKBP Ni Made Pujawati in Mataram, Thursday.

He assured that the submission of the two suspects along with evidence to the public prosecutor was a follow-up to the results of the prosecutor's research which stated that the case file was complete.

For the completion of the handling of child marriage cases at the investigation stage, Pujawati said that this is a commitment to law enforcement in reducing the number of child marriages, especially in NTB which is quite high.

"So, law enforcement is actually a common goal that we have built with friends from the LPA (child protection agency) and the prosecutor's office," he said.

The two suspects in this case have the initials MH and MN. Both are the biological fathers of a child couple involved in a marriage in the Pusuk area, West Lombok Regency in mid-2024.

In the determination, the two suspects as parents were deemed unable to prevent marriages for their two children, which were still not sufficient for the marriage age.

Now, the two suspects are city prisoners under the supervision of the public prosecutor on suspicion of violating Article 10 of the Republic of Indonesia Law Number 12 of 2022 concerning the Crime of Sexual Violence with a threat of 9 years in prison.