Divorce Trends Steadily Increase, Why?

Prof. Mark Cammack (right) presenting his paper "Recent Divorce Trends in Indonesia" on EMC moderated by Alia Alhasna (left) and attended by participants from greater Jakarta.

Jakarta | badilag.net/english (6/4/10)

What is driving the increase in the number of people divorcing? Why are more people processing their divorce through the courts?

Those are the two questions becoming one of the main discussions of English Meeting Club (EMC) held by Badilag on Thursday (1/4). Prof. Mark Cammack, Professor from Southwestern Law School, Los Angeles, became the keynote speaker on the meeting.

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Presenting his paper entitled “Recent Divorce Trends in Indonesia”, Mark revealed data on divorce in Indonesia since 1973 to the most recent ones along with the trends that followed.

“The number of divorce cases cannot be equated with the number of people divorcing,” Mark said.

Mark further compared the number of divorce cases in the courts to the number that was taken from society during 1973-1988. The number of divorce cases in society – which Mark referred to as Self-Reported Divorce – doubled the number of divorces decided through the courts.

From 2001 to 2009 the number of divorce cases shows a steady increase. Some factors attributed to the raise are: ease of divorce, economic independence of woman, early arranged marriages, and greater gender equity.

Meanwhile, increased compliance with state law and increased public awareness of courts procedures and costs have triggered people to process their divorce through the courts.