• Download the Indonesia section of Home Truths: A Global Report on Equality in the Muslim Family in English or Arabic.

• On 14 October 2009, women's groups in Indonesia launched a national Musawah affiliate called Alimat ('knowledgeable women'), an organisation to address gender inequality. Its work will include a review of the 1974 Law on Marriage.

More than 80 per cent of Indonesia’s 234 million people are Muslim, making it the largest nation of Muslims in the world. Marriage issues are governed by the 1974 Marriage Law, which was, at the time, considered the best compromise between women’s rights advocates and religious groups. In the last decade, Indonesia has been undergoing a historic process of socio-political change after 32 years of dictatorship. In 2004, a Domestic Violence Act was passed, and women’s groups are now advocating for reform of the Marriage Law to reflect current values of justice and democracy.

Civil and religious courts operate side-by-side, with religious courts having jurisdiction over cases between Muslims on marriage and divorce matters. The religious courts base their decisions on the Kompilasi Hukum Islam (Compilation of Islamic Laws), guidelines compiled in the 1980s and introduced by presidential decree in 1991 to achieve greater consistency in the country’s Muslims laws.

• The 1974 Marriage Law contains discriminatory stipulations for women in marriage and the family, including:
  
  • The minimum age of marriage differs for the groom and bride.
  • Registration is only required for administration purposes and often does not occur, leaving women without proof of their marriages.
  • The husband is recognised as head of the family and the wife solely as housewife.
  • Polygamy is allowed through court decisions but many polygamous marriages occur outside of the courts.
  • Children born outside of legal marriages cannot claim relations with their fathers or access inheritance from them.

• The 1991 Presidential Decree on the Kompilasi Hukum Islam puts Muslim women at additional disadvantage, as:
  • Marriage is currently a contract between two males—the groom and the father of the bride or wali—and not between the groom and bride.
  • Disobedience (nusyuz) to one’s husband results in the loss of maintenance and is often used to justify acts of domestic violence.
  • Daughters receive only half the inheritance shares as sons.
     
• Growing poverty and socio-economic disparities, as well as recent violent conflicts, put Indonesian women under more pressure to carry the burden of their families’ survival and children’s future. Discriminatory marriage and family laws make struggling and poor women more vulnerable to discrimination and abuse.
   
• Increasing numbers of Muslim women are becoming heads of families in Indonesia as an outcome of poverty, labour migration and armed conflict. Because the community and the state do not recognise their leadership in the family, these women face obstacles in providing for their families, are denied access to entitlements and cannot conduct legal acts on behalf of their families. Ultimately, an increasing number of families are forced to survive without proper access to legal and social protection.
   
• Muslim women are victims of human trafficking and many Muslim men actively utilise religious beliefs and institutions, such as temporary contractual marriages, to legitimise such practices.
   
• Many Muslim women are employed as domestic workers who provide services such as childcare, care of the elderly, cleaning and cooking, both within Indonesia and in other countries in Asia and the Middle East. These women contend with discrimination and violence in the context of feudalism and slavery-like practices.

• There is a strong community of Muslim theologians and academics outside and within the government in Indonesia who are continuously initiating public dialogue on the use of jurisprudential and interpretative principles and methodologies that will lead to the intended objectives of the Shari‘ah (maqasid al-Shari‘ah) and will allow for gender justice. Women’s NGOs and activists actively engage with them and enlist their support.
   
• Muslim women in Indonesia have been organising since the 1920s. During the 1940s and 1950s, Muslim women spoke out against polygamy and trafficking in women. In the past ten years of political reform, more than 300 new organisations were set up to address violence against women and women’s rights in the family, including among traditional pesantren (Islamic boarding school) communities and mass-based Muslim women’s organisations.
   
• The 2004 Domestic Violence Act that was passed includes protection for domestic workers. Other civil society initiatives affecting Muslim women’s rights within marriage and the family include revision of a gender-biased classical text (uqud al lujain) on rights and responsibilities of husbands and wives that is used by almost all pesantren in Indonesia and advocacy for a fatwa and law on reproductive rights to help address the high maternal mortality rate that is partially due to unsafe abortions.
   
• In 2005, the Indonesian Ministry of Religious Affairs attempted to develop an alternative draft of the Kompilasi Hukum Islam (Compilation of Islamic Laws). About 15 Muslim scholars from many parts of the country used theological and religious arguments to develop a new idea of marriage based on progressive interpretations of Islamic law and principles of equality and justice. However, widespread resistance from religious conservatives and extremists led the Ministry to withdraw it from consideration.
   
• As part of Indonesia’s broad-based legal and policy reform agenda during this historic period of democratisation, a number of laws affecting Muslim women’s position in marriage and the family have been scheduled for public debate and political decision-making, including revision of the Marriage Law, drafting of a law on procedural reform in the religious courts, and revision of the penal code including stipulations on rape.