The Pleasure marriages or contact marriage trend is at its peak in Indonesia. In most cases, middle eastern tourists enter into marriages with women from the region before they leave to fulfill their sexual desires. These temporary marriages last as long as the tourist stays, about 4-5 days. On leaving, a divorce is issued that ends the temporary marriage. It’s called “pleasure marriage” or “contract marriage.” The practice is unlawful under Indonesian law, but enforcement has been weak.
Kota Bunga in Indonesia is one town that has been a hotbed of contract marriages. Many such marriages are consummated in lowly venues, including 3-star hotels or guest rooms. Involved are usually young girls with some being as young as 17 years. The dowry is paid to the tourist, and it varies from $850 at times. The marriage sometimes requires the women to do certain household chores, such as cleaning and preparing food.
Recruitment is done through agents or brokers and tends to connect women for marriage. The middlemen take a cut from the dowry, sometimes going up to 10 percent as recompense for facilitating the marriage settlement. Some women have been married hundreds of times, often using an alias like “Cahaya.”
Did you know? A woman even entered over 15 pleasure marriages in Indonesia
One woman testified that she was married to at least 15 different tourists coming from the Middle East. This trade is rampant in Indonesia’s poverty-stricken provinces and rural villages. Villages around Puncak, Indonesia, have been termed “divorcee villages” because of their regularity.
The COVID-19 pandemic made the economic situation worsen, and more women went into it. For many women, this becomes a method of survival in order to afford the necessities to feed themselves and their families. The local people sometimes find this to be an alternative for prostitution though it is illegal.
These contract marriage are considered an alternative to prostitution
Agents and brokers rationalize what they do by maintaining that they “assist” women in securing employment, plus they keep them from being taken advantage of by the clients. Marriages are a more culturally acceptable alternative to outright prostitution because they constitute a kind of temporary liaison.
Some agents facilitate as many as 25 marriages a month, giving an idea of the scale of the practice. Women such as “Cahaya” often find themselves caught between financial need and social stigma. Most women hide such marriages from their families fearing the repercussions of society. Most the women involved are married or divorced before, with few financial sources.
This practice was encouraged by the tourism industry as it could utilize the income generation from poor regions to generate revenue. It was a result that tourism originating from the Middle East had to be relocated from Thailand to Indonesia during the 1980s due to increased crime in Thailand. The illegality of the business, however, has never been enough to stop the practice because the local women are without an alternative source of income and no one keeps any detailed records of its enforcement.
While the rest of these marriages are illegal, in Indonesia, there is also a clear difference between the consensual and forced marriages. That is, if a woman enters willingly into this contract marriage, it may not be illegal, but if a woman is forced or coerced, well then of course it is certainly illegal. This distinction is an important basis when discussing the ethical and legal implications.
