Teen marriages cause serious social problems

Teen marriages cause serious social problems

By I Ketut Sutika

Denpasar, Bali (Antara): The ongoing multi-dimensional crisis has badly affected efforts of the Bali provincial government to prevent the island's teenagers from tying the knot with their young lovers, said a minister.

The increasing rate of school dropouts has encouraged the youth, teenage girls in particular, to get married soon, according to State Minister for Women Empowerment Kofifah Indar Parawansa.

The minister said during her visit to the province recently that if the local government paid attention to this issue, teenage marriage would not increase sharply.

"The central government has already provided a social safety net for education to help these unfortunate students continue their schooling," said Kofifah, who is also head of the National Family Planning Board.

Moreover, a number of local and international institutions have committed to provide financial assistance for these school dropouts.

The minister continued that local government and related parties have to register the precise number of students who really needed financial support.

"They have to be able to finish their education before thinking about having a family," Kofifah warned.

Over the past three years, the number of Balinese girls getting married under 20 years of age has increased rapidly.

Bali has been very successful in implementing the national family planning program in curbing the birth rate and the province's population.

There are 441,208 users of contraceptives or 78.48 percent of the total 541,983 young married couples in Bali.

According to provincial government data, Balinese men and women get married at an average age of 24.2 years, compared to the national age level of only 21.9.

"But that figure was taken from data in l990. I am sure that the figures have changed drastically due to the crisis. We're still conducting the survey," said I.G.A.G Kepakisan, head of Bali's Family Planning Board office.

The data also shows that in Karangasem, one of the island's poorest regencies in East Bali, many women married below 20 years of age due to economic and social problems.

Despite this gloomy picture, Head of University of Udayana's Women's Study Center Dr. Tjok Istri Putra Astiti said that in Bali, women play the major role (almost 98 percent) in the implementation of family planning.

This multi-dimensional crisis has shown no sign of recovery, commented Kofifah adding that it has affected all aspects of people's lives, particularly the lives of the destitute. The number of vulnerable families has increased dramatically since the crisis started in l997.

Around 20 percent of the 24 million family planning acceptors are now categorized as impoverished families who have to be given free access to the family planning program if the government wants to maintain the current population rate.

"They don't have money to buy food and other basic needs, let alone contraceptive pills or IUDs," she said.

On the other hand, both the Central and provincial governments face difficult financial problems and have only limited funds to provide free contraception for the needy couples.

The 2001 State Budget only allocates 15 percent of the total costs needed nationwide for the procurement of contraception for poor couples.

"Indonesia depends mostly on donor countries in the provision of contraceptives," she explained.

So far, the European Union, Japan and Canada have been the most active donor countries in helping Indonesia in controlling its population rate.

The Family Planning Board, she said, is strongly committed to provide technical and financial support to the provincial governments in the implementation of the family planning program.

Minister Kofifah added that the government is now careful in launching any family planning program. In the past, the program's target was for couples to have only two children and to create a small family.

The vision has now changed. Now, people are just encouraged to control the number of children they have in accordance with their own capability.

"Controlling the number of children an individual has may violate human rights related to women's reproductive health," she maintained.

The government currently encourages married couples to lead a happy family life providing quality care for children both emotionally and physically, she said.