Gender Mainstreaming Strategy to Eliminate

the Practice of Girl Marriage

Emy Susanti

& Siti Mas’udah

Department of Sociology, Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya, Indonesia

Keywords: girl marriage, gender mainstreaming, poor community, feminist perspective

Abstract: The practice of girl marriage in Indonesia has remained to this day, mainly in poor villages. This paper is

intended to reveal how women who married at a young age have been victims and how the practice of girl

marriage could be eliminated by using a gender mainstreaming strategy. This paper was based on research

conducted in poor villages in the province of East Java, namely in Sampang Regency and Ponorogo

Regency. This study is a feminist perspective research with the research subjects being women who were

married at a young age, their parents, community leaders, formal leaders, and the leaders of women's

organizations. The data collection techniques applied in the study were an in-depth interview technique with

20 informants and interviews using a questionnaire with 200 respondents. This study shows that the practice

of early marriage is detrimental to women, since women are the victims. The study also found that

implementing the gender mainstreaming strategy potentially could reduce the practice of girl marriage in

poor communities.

1 INTRODUCTION

Various policies and regulations severely limit the

practice of girl marriage in Indonesia. However, girl

marriage is still happening, mainly in poor

communities. Compared to other regions in

Indonesia, the number of early marriages in East

Java Province is quite high. One out of three women

who were married in Java married for the first time

when they were aged under 16, especially in West

Java and East Java (Indonesia Population Data

Survey, IDHS, 2007). Parents often encourage girls

to marry even when they are not yet 18 years of age

and still make them go to school with the aim of

easing the burden of the family economy.

Early marriage has been studied in many

countries (Gemignani and Wodon, 2015; Khanna,

Verma and Weiss, 2013; Myers and Harvey, 2011;

Nguyen, and Wodon, 2014). This study is more

focused on the side of the girls who married at a

young age, regardless of the age of the husbands. In

an early marriage, women often bear more losses

because they get pregnant and give birth

dangerously early (Field and Ambrus, 2008). This

study used sociological analysis with a gender

perspective to explain the mechanism of the social

reproduction of gender-based power relations by

Foucault (2002) that support the ongoing practice of

girl marriage. This paper is intended to reveal how

the practice of girl marriage could be eliminated by

using a gender mainstreaming strategy.

2 METHOD

This paper is based on the research conducted in

poor villages in the province of East Java, namely in

Sampang Regency and Ponorogo Regency. This

study is a feminist perspective research study

focusing on women’s lives. The subjects of the

research were women who married at young age,

their parents, community leaders and formal leaders.

The data collection techniques applied in the study

were an in-depth interview technique with 20

informants and interviews using a questionnaire with

200 respondents.

182

Susanti, E. and Mas’udah, S.

Gender Mainstreaming Strategy to Eliminate the Practice of Girl Marriage.

DOI: 10.5220/0008818701820185

In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Contemporary Social and Political Affairs (ICoCSPA 2018), pages 182-185

ISBN: 978-989-758-393-3

3 RESULT AND DISCUSSION

The practice of girl marriage has remained to this

day, especially in the poorer villages of Ponorogo

Regency and Sampang Regency, in the East Java

province. The results of the study revealed two

important things; 1) women who married at a young

age were the victims of early marriage practices in

poor communities and 2) a gender mainstreaming

strategy (Office of the Special Advisor on Gender

Issues and Advancement of Women, 2001; FAO,

2017) needs to be implemented to speed up the

process of eliminating the practice of early girl

marriage in poor communities

3.1 Girls as Victims of Early Marriage

Practices

The practice of early marriage for girls among poor

families is considered to reduce the burden of the

family economically. Girls under 18 years of age

revealed that their family could not afford to send

them to school. The following data indicates that

girls were married at a very young age both in

Sampang and Ponorogo. Most of them got married

at the age of 14 and under (Sampang by 74% and

Ponorogo by 68%). Their parents marry off their

girls just after their first menstruation or after they

have graduated from elementary school. This study

shows that once the girls get married, they drop out

of school. This indicates that the girls were the

victims of the practice of early marriage since they

suffer from a loss of rights as children.

The results of this study also indicate that the

girls in poor communities were married at the age of

11-18 years old. Their mothers and their sisters also

got married when they were young girls, and the

majority of their mothers and sisters were married at

the age of 12-14 years old (Sampang by 81% and

Ponorogo by 75%). The study also shows that there

is a social meaning behind early marriage among the

majority of wives (73% of 200 women), as it is a

part of following the cultural norms and avoiding the

label of spinster.

A mother of a 16 year old girl who had just got

married stated the following: ”…. the important

thing for my daughter … She has a new family, she

can ask for help from her husband. There is someone

as a bread winner and it is her husband's

responsibility…. This happens…. because I am not

able to send her to school otherwise …. If her father

was still alive …. he would be the bread-winner ….

so now that she is married, she is not so dependent

on my family anymore…” (Mrs R, 40 years old, the

mother of a 16 year old married girl in Sampang

Regency)

When girls are married early, their educational

trajectory is altered. Formal schooling and education

often ceases, which means that they stop acquiring

the knowledge and skills that will carry them

through life, including as a part of being productive

members of their households and communities. In

the poor communities, the girls have no choice and

have to obey to their parents and the cultural norms.

It was obvious from the study that the girls were

victims and that they sacrificed their lives for their

families’ welfare.

3.2 Gender Mainstreaming Strategy

and Women Empowerment in the

Villages

Gender mainstreaming is a strategy that is carried

out rationally and systematically to achieve and

realize gender equality and justice through policies

and programs that pay attention to the experiences,

aspirations, needs and problems of women and men.

‘Gender Mainstreaming is widely understood as a

strategy used for institutionalizing and integrating

gender concerns into the mainstream’ (Tiessen, R.

2007: p.12). This strategy is built on the assumption

that women and men do not enjoy equal legal, social

and economic rights. In Indonesia, a presidential

instruction was issued - number 9 of 2000

concerning gender mainstreaming – in order to carry

out the program preparation by considering issue of

women's needs in a series of policies, programs and

activities. This strategy could be implemented

through a process that incorporates gender analysis

into work programs, integrating the experiences and

aspirations of women and men into the development

process.

The gender mainstreaming approach is an

improvement on the gender approach in previous

developments and it is one of the most effective

ways to achieve gender equality. This improvement

can be found in the strategy of shifting the focus of

policies from the subordination of women to

mainstreaming or integrating women into all

developmental sectors with the aim of achieving

equality and empowerment.

Implementing a gender mainstreaming strategy

could reduce the practice of girl marriage in poor

villages, since the gender mainstreaming strategy is

based on local wisdom. In addition, the gender

mainstreaming strategy empowers women as agents

of change, where women are the 'victim' of the girl

Gender Mainstreaming Strategy to Eliminate the Practice of Girl Marriage

183

marriage. This study showed that the practice of girl

marriage is still supported by the respected informal

leaders, who are mainly male.

The gender mainstreaming strategy should be put

to the consideration of the entire development

process as an integral part of the functional activities

of all governmental agencies and institutions at both

the central and regional levels. In this case, the

gender mainstreaming strategy will optimize the

efforts to eliminate the practice of early girl

marriage. The main prerequisite condition of the

gender mainstreaming process is empowering

women through the dissemination of information

that is important to women. When women have

sufficient information and knowledge about the

things that are detrimental to their lives and their

families, it is hoped that women could take

precautions. However, the results of the study found

there to be a contradictory situation, as follows;

Table 1: Knowledge of Wives on the Regulations of Age

Marriage in Ponorogo and Sampang

No.

(%)

No Regulation on Age of

Marriage

108

After baligh’s age

(After First Menstruation)

After 16 years old

(based on Indonesian

Government Regulations on

Marriage)

Total

200

100

Table 1 shows that the majority (54%) of wives

who married at a young age have no information

about the regulations on the age of marriage. The

women were sure that there were no regulations on

the age of marriage since the issue is considered to

be private. However, the Indonesian Government

actually has regulations related to marriage and the

age limit for brides is 16 years old. Furthermore, the

latest policy on the age limit of marriage has been

changed to 18 years old. This study showed that

only 30% of wives who got married at a young age

said that the limit for marriageable age for brides

was 16 years old (based on the existing Indonesian

Government Regulations on Marriage).

The facts revealed from the study are that women

do not know enough information and have no

knowledge at all about the rules of marriage. This

condition could mean that women in poor villages

are powerless toward the betterment of their own

lives. Especially in women's development programs,

women’s issues are the main thing that need to be

considered. Women are not usually included in

village meetings which also produce important

decisions for women, including the age limit of

marriage. Some of the village officials interviewed

explained that the village office has never provided

information about the Indonesian marriage law

regarding the minimum age for women to get

married. When we asked whether women were

included in setting up the development program in

their village, a village official answered; "...village

meetings on the development program? We also

invited community leaders to give input ... yes ….

the majority were men ... but there were also two

women from the PKK organization who often

attended the village meetings…" (Mr N, village

official, 45 years old).

From this explanation, it is clear that women are

not considered in the decision making process of the

development programs in their own villages. In the

case of early girl marriage practices in poor villages,

it is very important to include women when

determining policies and programs so then the

prevention and protection of girls can run optimally.

This is because girls are the direct victims of the

practice of early marriage. Gender mainstreaming

requires integrating a gender perspective to the

content of the different policies and addressing the

issue of representation for both women and men in

the given policy area. Both dimensions – gender

representation and gender responsive content - need

to be taken into consideration in all phases of the

policy-making process (Susanti, 2009).

Gender mainstreaming ensures that policy-

making and legislative work has a greater relevance

for society, because it makes the policies respond

more effectively to the needs of all citizens – women

and men, girls and boys. Gender mainstreaming

makes public interventions more effective and

ensures that inequalities are not perpetuated, in this

case, the practice of early girl marriage. Gender

mainstreaming does not only aim to avoid the

creation or reinforcement of inequalities which can

have adverse effects on both women and men. It also

implies analyzing the existing situation, with the

purpose of identifying inequalities, and developing

policies which aim to reduce the inequalities and

undo the mechanisms that caused them. Integrating

the gender perspective into policy means that

equality between women and men, as the

overarching principle, should be taken into

consideration in all decisions and in each phase of

the policy-making process by all of the actors

involved.

ICoCSPA 2018 - International Conference on Contemporary Social and Political Affairs

184

4 CONCLUSIONS

Based on the study, this paper argues that young

girls are the victims of early marriage practices. The

practice of early marriage in poor communities has

been going on for a long time and has continued for

generations until now. It is obvious that early girl

marriage practices were not an economic issue but

more of a gender issue.

Early marriage practices in poor communities

has been going on for decades since the government

did not previously have specific programs designed

for the prevention of early marriage. This research

shows that the majority of the girls and wives who

have been early marriage victims have no

knowledge at all about the marriage laws that apply

in Indonesia. This research shows the importance of

implementing gender mainstreaming strategy so then

any efforts aimed to eliminate early marriage

practices can run optimally.

Implementing a gender mainstreaming strategy

potentially could reduce the practice of girl marriage

since gender mainstreaming strategy is based on

local wisdom. In addition, the gender mainstreaming

strategy seeks to empower women as the agents of

change, particularly where the women have been the

'victims' of girl marriages.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We seek to express our sincere gratitude to the

DRPM Ministry of Research, the Higher Education

Republic of Indonesia and the Dean of Faculty of

Social and Political Sciences of Universitas

Airlangga for giving permission to conduct this

research. We also acknowledge the support from the

people who agreed to participate in this study.

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