MUSRI was only 14 when she learned she was to marry. She did not dare defy the custom of her village in Java, Indonesia’s most populous island, by refusing the proposal from her 25-year-old suitor. After her wedding Musri stopped seeing her friends and studying at school. After just five months, her husband left her. Though she eventually went back to school and went on to find work, the experience was harrowing. “I was too ashamed to leave the house,” she says. “I had to marry someone I did not choose.”
Child marriage is less common in Indonesia than in some corners of the world, notably South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa (see chart). But Indonesia still ranks among the ten countries with the highest number of young brides. UNICEF, a UN agency, estimates that each year 50,000 Indonesian girls aged under 15 marry, and 340,000 aged under 18. Recent government figures suggest that nearly a quarter of Indonesian women aged between 20...Continue reading
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