Contents:
- Medical Video: The Youngest Moms Of All Time
- One in five Indonesian girls under 18 years is married
- Why are child marriage cases in Indonesia still high?
- What is the impact of a child's marriage on health?
- Complications during pregnancy and childbirth
- Babies born with low weight (LBW) and stunting
- Cervical cancer and HIV
- The ideal age of marriage is 20 years and above
Medical Video: The Youngest Moms Of All Time
Anyone who marries young is very glorified in this country. Indeed, if you look at the Marriage Law No.1 of 1974, men are allowed to marry legally when they are 19 years and 16 years old for their women. But on the other hand, many parties ranging from health experts to national and international legal aid agencies have objected to the standard of the ideal age of marriage pegged too low.
The protest was not without reason. Marriage of children under 18 years can bring a fatal impact on physical health problems, especially for young women and future children.
One in five Indonesian girls under 18 years is married
Summarizing various data, the marriage rate of children in Indonesia is still very high. What is meant by child marriage here is a marriage that occurs when the bride is under 18 years old. The age range of 10-18 years is still officially classified as children.
Of the approximately 65 million teenagers in Indonesia, BPS data revealed that girls who married under the age of 18 in 2016 reached 17 percent. That is, one in five Indonesian girls is married before the age of 18. At least every year there are around 300,000 Indonesian girls who are married under the age of 16.
This puts Indonesia as the country with the seventh highest child marriage in the world and the second highest in Southeast Asia. West Nusa Tenggara, West Sulawesi, Central Kalimantan, Papua, West Java, and Central Sulawesi are some of Indonesia's regions with the highest cases of early marriage according to BPS data in collaboration with UNICEF Indonesia.
Why are child marriage cases in Indonesia still high?
Dini Widiastuti, Executive Director of the Plan International Indonesia Foundation (YPII) when met in Kuningan, South Jakarta, Tuesday (14/8) at the launch of the Young Health program The collaboration program between AstraZeneca and the Indonesian Ministry of Health revealed that the high number of child marriages in Indonesia was influenced by many factor.
Ranging from economic and socio-cultural factors, to children of rape victims who are forced to marry the perpetrators. Dini further said that the views of the people who still embraced the idea of young marriage and then further proclaimed the marriage of children.
Reporting from CNN Indonesia, director of the Islamic Religious College of the Ministry of Religion, Arskal Salim said that parents of children with low educational backgrounds have a greater chance of marrying their children before the age of 18. Child marriage is also influenced by religious factors under the pretext of avoiding adultery with free sex. Also, not a few are married because they are already pregnant first.
What is the impact of a child's marriage on health?
Teenagers who get married before turning 18 are 41% more at risk of experiencing mental disorders such as depression and multiple personalities. However, it is not just the impact. There are various other negative problems due to child marriage, especially in the health of the body of adolescent girls.
Complications during pregnancy and childbirth
More than a quarter of women of childbearing age in Indonesia give birth under the age of 20 years. Ironically, childbirth at an early age is associated with a high maternal mortality rate. Collaborative data from BPS and UNICEF Indonesia report that girls aged 10-14 years are five times more at risk of dying while still pregnant or during labor due to complications than women who are pregnant at the age of 20-24 years.
Girls who are pregnant at a young age face a much higher risk of childbirth complications, such as obstetric fistula, infection, severe bleeding, anemia, and eclampsia. Complications of pregnancy and childbirth are the main causes of death in girls aged 15-19 years.
This is because the body of the girl has not been "mature" physically and biologically, so it will still be very risky to receive the impact of having sex, conceiving, let alone giving birth. Child marriage is also known to increase the risk of miscarriages and illegal abortion.
Babies born with low weight (LBW) and stunting
The impact of child marriage will also affect prospective babies because young women are still very vulnerable to anemia. Babies born to very young women have a 20-30% higher chance of premature birth, low birth weight, and malnutrition.
In fact, children born to teenage mothers younger than 19 years have an increased risk of stunting by up to 40% in their first 2 years of life.
The UNICEF report and BPS also confirmed that babies born to women who married very young had a higher risk of early death. The risk of infant mortality before even 1 year of age increases to 60% compared to children born to twenty-year-old mothers.
This risk occurs because prospective babies compete to get nutritional intake with their mother's body, which incidentally are also equally in the stage of growth and development. Babies who do not get enough nutrition and nutritious blood will be hampered or even fail to develop in the womb.
Cervical cancer and HIV
Marriage at a too young age increases the risk of venereal disease, especially HIV / AIDS and cervical cancer. Because, most cases of young marriage are carried out by children who do not really understand the principles of safe sex and their reproductive health.
The ideal age of marriage is 20 years and above
Seeing the health risks that are not playing games, it is not surprising that various parties constantly urge the Indonesian government to increase the minimum age for marriage to at least 20 years for women and 22 years for men. BKKBN itself assesses the ideal age for marriage for Indonesian women should minimum of 21 years.
Experts believe that waiting a few years older to get married helps build a more settled household life and more secure couples' health.
