Child custody in Indonesia is a family issue that may come into subject matter of the court if you’re filing for a divorce. This is something normal in relation to the divorce case. Both parents claim that they are the best for the custody of their children. But do they? How the laws in Indonesian govern something like this? Read on!
Fathers’ Engagement
Nowadays, fathers are getting more engaged in the child upbringing in Indonesia. They take the children to school everyday before they go to work. Fathers read with their children at night, teach them and get involved with their everyday’s schooling works. Some of them also take them for taking a bath, feed them and get them dressed decently. You can’t ignore this phenomenon. This is happening everywhere. They are doing this because they think fathers can do it too. They can even do it better in getting involved with their child’s upbringing in Indonesia.
Mother’s Career
Just because your wife is working and have a career, it doesn’t mean that she can’t nurture the child. Just because she’s busy with work, it does not mean she may be able to lose custody of a child if a divorce case in session.
Husband and wife are equal in the marriage life. Both of them have the same rights in their career and business. According to Article 31 of Marriage Law imposed that both husband and wife have the rights to earn a living. Even sometime, just sometime, wife’s making more money than her husband.
Custody of a Child
When you’re still married, they called it parental authority. If you’re divorced, they called it custody. Pretty much the same issues. It just in Indonesia, we recognized custody parent, and non-custody parent. But this is in theory as in the law books. There’s more to it than meet the eyes. The judges are happy as long as you and the child are happy.
According to Article 105 of Compilation of Islamic Law, child under 12 (twelve) years old, the custody belongs to the mother. For the child above 12, he may choose his custody parent holder. Supreme Court’s ruling number 210/K/AG/1999 imposed that a mother’s privilege for child custody may be revoked if she’s committing apostate and practise other religion beside Islam.
Other Supreme Court’s precedence number 376/PK/Pdt/2011 regarding this matter is also applicable when the female spouse was committing apostate and turned Moslem. Nevertheless, the male spouse was charged with criminal sentence for abandoning their child. So, the judges favor the party with less liability in order to raise the child.
How to Win the Custody
It’s simple: the best interest of the child! That’s the keywords. It does sounds simple, but might not be easy to do it. Many people knows it, but many of them also fail. Getting yourself involved in school with the children, and teaching them with their English reading are a good start. Really good start. Keep up the good work!
You don’t say that you are richer than your spouse and therefore makes you a better parent. You need to prove that you are better because you put the child first. You need to promote yourself, and destroy the credibility of the opposing party. It sounds cruel, but it’s a divorce case anyway. The moment you lodged the case to the court, both of you are opponents. No longer husband and wife. After all, you’re doing it for the child. You need to to do it in order to win the custody of the child. But hey, remember this: it’s not about you. It’s about the child. Read my lips, put the child first. Please contact me when you need any further assistance with this issue. We have previous portfolios that you can use as your reference.
My name is Asep Wijaya. Thank you for reading my posts!
