Child marriages are rampant in Madura

Child marriages are rampant in Madura

By Lies Marcoes-Natsir

SUMENEP, Madura, East Java (JP): The ferry connecting the tip
of East Java and Madura island was moving slowly. The air was hot
and stinging on that noon day, and the slight ocean breeze did
not help to temper the heat. It was the end of the dry season.

An intensely Madurese atmosphere was at work here. This
expressed itself not only in the special dialect they spoke, it
was obvious too from the way they were dressed. Old and young
women covered their heads with an embroidered scarf or a Moslem
headscarf. Gold jewelry adorned their bodies in a very eye-
catching way. Women had heavy eye makeup, generously using black
kohl (celak) on the lower eyelids. The men use kohl too, and even
the eyes of babies are daubed with the stuff, which is usually
imported from Mecca. Moslems do not regard it as a cosmetic.
Followers of Prophet Muhammad use, and Madura has always been
known as a profoundly Moslem region.

A young teenage girl was sitting in the corner of the ferry
bridge, away from the scorching sun, carrying a baby in a red
batik cloth. In one hand she was holding a plastic bag stuffed
with baby clothing.

When the baby started wriggling in her arms, she started to
rock the child. She unbuttoned her dress with an automatic
movement and produced an undeveloped nipple. The baby in her arms
could not suck it, and grew frustrated when it discovered that
there was no milk.

The girl pulled a bottle filled with milk from the plastic
bag. She put the dirty nipple of the bottle in her own mouth to
wet it first, then stuck it in the tiny mouth of the baby.

The milk in the bottle looked cold, and it may well have been
off, which was perhaps why the baby rejected it. But she forced
the nipple in until the baby choked on it.

Bocak manak bocah (a child begetting a child), commented a
friend of mine with a sigh of compassion.

I was able to see why the mortality rate of mothers and babies
on this arid island was higher than in Java. The maternal
mortality rate in Indonesia is among the highest of all ASEAN
countries, 425 per 100,000, but in certain regions like Madura,
West Nusa Tenggara and East Nusa Tenggara, the numbers might be
even higher.

Certainly, limited health infrastructure and clean water are
some of the causes of the high maternal mortality rate in these
parts of the archipelago. But economic and sociocultural factors
and religion are also important. These factors define the role of
women in public.

The phenomenon of teenage pregnancies is not really unique to
Madura.

Valuable information about child marriages came to light at a
recent discussion on reproduction rights in Islam. Child
marriages are a normal thing, even if the marriage laws state
that marrying couples should have reached adulthood. Child
marriages are still taking place a decade after the laws were put
on the books.

The stories quoted here were based on their own experience. A
young religious elder, Kyai Abdullah, explained that such
marriages are not really strange. He chairs the Sumenep Islamic
Court and teaches at a Moslem boarding school, where the training
was held from Oct. 7 to 12.

The Moslem Court in Sumenep registered at least 150 divorce
cases last year which were caused by conflict between the
couples, as a result of forced child marriages.

The stipulation that the bride should be at least 16 and the
groom 18 is just a legal formality. Often a would-be bride gets
married two years after graduating from elementary school,
between 14 and 15. But ages can be manipulated by the village
chief for the registration at the Moslem Marriage Office (KUA),
so that the marriage is regarded as legal.

In many cases, marriages are often conducted in a way called
sirri, or secretly. This mean that such a marriage is declared
legal by religious law, even if it is not registered at the KUA.
Even if the state does not recognize such marriages, to most
people in Madura this is not important, as long as the marriage
is recognized under religious law.

Secret marriages take place when the couple have not reached
adulthood yet, they might still be children. Such marriages are
usually set up to link the couple's parents, who will marry them
off when the children grow up. The reasons are usually quite
simple. For example, the parents feel that they have donated to
other people's weddings too often, they covet the donations they
are due for their children's wedding. After the tobacco harvest,
there are lots of people who are suddenly rich, and marry off
their children at a very young age. Some parents marry the
children because they do not want to see their daughters lose
their virginity outside of marriage, which is against religious
teachings. Others do so because they are afraid that their
daughters will spend their life in the dreaded state of
spinsterhood.

Secret marriages do not always end in failure. One of the
participants in the recent discussion said that she married when
she was still in boarding school, just before she took exams at
Tsanawiyah Moslem Junior High School. When her father came to
fetch her for marriage, she felt that her life was crumbling
apart and her future a bottomless dark pit.

But after the marriage, her husband allowed her to continue
her studies and graduate from senior high school, and they then
led a good married life.

Usually, children of sirri marriages are sent back to boarding
school and "enter married life" three or four years later.

Regardless whether or not a couple get along well, a sirri
marriage is rarely "dangerous" if both of them are still minors.
Things are different if the groom is an adult and the bride is
not.

One participant from Madura who lives in Jember, East Java,
now said she was married when she was a fifth grader in
elementary school, and her husband was 23 years old at the time.
It is understood that in a sirri marriage the couple should not
lie together as husband and wife. But that's not the way it was
for her.

"My mother did not know that my husband frequently pinned me
down and had his way with me. I was very scared but I didn't dare
scream. My mother would've been very angry if she'd known that
we'd had sex before the time. I only wanted everything to be over
soon, so that he would go home to his parents. Afterwards I'd go
to the bathroom, I couldn't urinate, my tears were falling
without me noticing it because of the excruciating pain I felt.
My genitals became swollen, felt as big as a coconut, making it
hard for me to walk. But I forced myself to walk because I was
afraid of my mother."

Pregnancy

Marriage at a very young age, followed by sex and pregnancy is
clearly unhealthy for women. Especially because in Madura family
planning is not allowed for religious reasons.

With due respect to traditional knowledge and local culture,
the traditional post-natal treatments with their generous use of
"Madurese ingredients" are perhaps not as hygienic as one would
hope.

One training participant said there is a post-natal custom
where the woman is "plugged" after childbirth with a tampon made
of jati leaf containing hot ashes. The tampon stays there until
she has finished her bath. This is supposed to benefit the womb
and shrink the vaginal lining. Post-natal infections are common
after this treatment.

The influence of sex is felt throughout daily life. In the
present concept, however, the woman is steadfastly placed in a
position where she has to perfect herself as much as she can with
the aid of various herbs and potions to provide satisfaction to
her spouse, in spite of the pain she has to go through. And
vaginal fluids -- natural before intercourse -- are absorbed by
ingredients rolled into cigar form in the vagina. This enables
the husband to enjoy sex as if the wife had never lost her
virginity.

As is implied in the current television commercial for Idaman
a traditional jamu made according to a Madurese recipe, husbands
are justified to grouch and look for another woman if their wife
no longer satisfies them.

It is ironic when one remembers that the Islamic wedding
principle is based on fairness and mutual love.

The writer works for the Indonesia Society for Pesantren and
Community Development (P3M) as a coordinator of an advocacy
program for health and reproduction rights of Moslem women.