TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Saparinah Sadli Award 2016 goes to a local woman from Bondowoso district, East Java, Sri Wahyuningsih. She has successfully created an event on child marriage aiming to educate kids and teenagers about the health of reproduction organ and how to stop the rising number of early pregnancy. She is claimed to strongly contribute to the decreasing amount of number on child marriage in her area.
As a teacher, Sri Wahyuningsih or Yuni educates and gives counseling about child marriage to her students. It is to minimize the negative impacts from the early pregnancy that is often caused by child marriage.
Indonesia, according to the data, is still dealing with a high percentage of child marriage. Coming from the law perspective, Indonesia is still imposing the law No. 1/1974 on Marriage where the age limit for women to get married is 16 years old and men is 19 years old. In the places where culture still plays the most fundamental roles in marriage, this is quite a normal view.
But good news comes in the last five years in some provinces in Indonesia. From the data gathered from 2010-2015 by Susenas, East Java ranked first in the decreasing number of marriage from 27.33% to 15.37%. This fantastic number is becoming the main focus for the jury where they find Bondowoso Regency is topping other regencies in East Java. The name Sri Wahyuningsih then comes to life.
Her achievement marks the role of a teacher as a medium to create changes. This also proves the role of city government to team up with every party including NGO’s to fight for child marriage. It is also to prove the importance of woman in the role of facing social issues. The power of woman and how we can appreciate those strong figures is the goal of this award. Yuni stated, “I am very much flattered that the things that I do purely coming from my heart can be appreciated.” She has proven that everyone can be a light, regardless of who we are and where we are.
This year's award, which was the 6th time's event, was held on Wednesday, August 24, 2016, in Manggala Wanabakti, Jakarta. It also marked Saparinah Sadli’s 90th birthday that fell on the exact day of the awards night.
AUDREY JULIA
