Women in mixed marriages have little legal protection

Sari P. Setiogi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

An Indonesian woman married to an American man decided to tell officials her daughter was born out of wedlock to ensure the baby would receive Indonesian citizenship.

"My husband has his heart set on Indonesian citizenship but he has been unable to acquire it. We want our daughter to grow up in Indonesia with Indonesian citizenship," she told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

The couple married in the United States in 1995. "Our marriage was never registered here," she said.

Law No. 68/1958 on citizenship follows the principle of ius sanguinis (bloodline) in determining the nationality of children.

However, the law fails to protect mixed couples and their children, particularly Indonesian women who marry foreigners.

Under the law, any child of a mixed marriage automatically assumes the same citizenship as his or her father.

These children only receive Indonesian citizenship at birth if the mother does not have a legally established relationship with the father or if the father is stateless.

"In 1984, Indonesia ratified the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women. It was legalized under Law No. 7/1984," a mixed marriage legal expert, Zulfa Basuki, told the Post.

"Article 9 says the state shall grant women equal rights as men with respect to the nationality of their children," she said.

Zulfa said the law should give Indonesian women the right to determine the nationality of their children.

"Forcing women to declare their children were born out of wedlock only victimizes the children later in life," said the lecturer at the University of Indonesia's School of Law.

Declaring a child to have been born out of wedlock means the expatriate father has no legal obligation toward the child, and the child is unable legally to inherit anything from their father.

Zulfa also said that under Law No. 9/1992, a woman can be arrested if her expatriate husband or their children overstay their resident visas (KITAS/KITAP).

"It is ridiculous that a wife or a mother could be put in prison for that," she said.

The immigration law states that an Indonesian husband can sponsor his foreign wife's resident visa. However, this is not true for Indonesian wives.

An Indonesian wife can only sponsor her children's resident visas or a social visa that would allow her husband to stay in Indonesia for a maximum of two months at a time.

A foreign husband of an Indonesian woman can enter Indonesia on a tourist or social visa and try to find a job here to become their sponsoring organization.

A KITAS is valid for one year and costs about Rp 1 million (US$110), while KITAP is a five-year resident visa that costs about Rp 2 million. It takes about six weeks to get either a KITAS or a KITAP.