Presentation Title: Child Marriage in Bangladesh and Indonesia: A Comparative Study
Theme: Indonesia: Societal and Comparative Perspectives 
Presenter: Md Juel Rana Kutub 

The study aims to explain why child marriage is more common in Bangladesh than Indonesia. Despite the improvement in women’s education, employment, political participation, and household decision-making process, the practice of early marriage is one the rise for girls, particularly in Bangladesh. Child marriage disadvantages women’s position in the family and society. Indonesia has the smallest number of girls are married before 15 by education compare to Bangladesh. Education-based inequalities in marriage by age 18 are greatest in Bangladesh and smallest in Indonesia. The study uses both primary and secondary data to conduct the study. 

The present study reveals that child marriages in both countries are largely driven by poverty, economic dependency, lack of education, religious beliefs, fear of harassment, lack of social security, and dowry in Bangladesh’s case. However, Bangladeshi women face more early marriages than Indonesians. Regardless of the progress in Bangladesh, Indonesia has a considerably higher level of socioeconomic development. Indonesia has a better condition than Bangladesh in terms of fertility reduction, literacy rate, and women's participation in household decision making. In Indonesia, systems of family organisation differ among ethnic groups, but kinship systems and social structures generally support a relatively high social and economic position for women. After marriage, Bangladeshi wife’s ties to her natal family weakens whereas Indonesian women’s relationship remain just as strong as a husband’s ties to his family.  In Bangladesh, parents play an important role in determining the life partner of their children, but marriage are no longer arranged by a couple’s parent in Indonesia. Culturally, sons are considered as a source of old-age support for parents in Bangladesh.  In Indonesia, no tradition assigns parental support to children of only one gender, although for some ethnic groups one of the younger daughters often remain at home to take care for older parents. In addition, Indonesian women use Islamic discourse to justify their participation in development activities, whereas in Bangladesh Islamic beliefs create for barrier for women participation in development activities. Therefore, socioeconomic development of Indonesian society has significantly reduced the number of child marriages whereas socioeconomic change in Bangladesh has not significantly reduced child marriage.

Md Juel Rana Kutub is a Ph.D. candidate in South-East Asia Social Inquiry, the University of New South Wales, Canberra, under the supervision of A. Prof. Minako Sakai with a research topic on Patriarchy and women’s empowerment in socio-economic modernisation in Bangladesh. His research interest covers the topics on gender and culture, women empowerment, religion, disaster resilience, socio-economic development in South Asia.