[gnusnich]

Jun 2, 2010
$77,000 to marry?
Proposed law requires foreign grooms to put up 'security guarantee'



Australian Timothy Bird with his Indonesian wife Ni Nengah Suartini and son William Timothy. The proposed law applies to foreigners marrying Muslim women. -- PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

JAKARTA - ALARM bells, not wedding bells, are ringing over Indonesian proposals to demand a 500 million rupiah (S$77,000) 'security guarantee' from foreign men who marry Indonesian women. Enraged brides-to-be are threatening to flee the country and marry their boyfriends abroad if the government approves the plan, which is part of a wider marriage law reform being pushed by Muslim conservatives.

And befuddled foreign grooms are asking why they are being targeted when stories of foreign men being exploited by gold-digging women are rife in the South-east Asian country. The proposal requires foreign men wishing to wed Muslim women - it will not apply to Christians, Buddhists or Hindus - to put a guarantee of 500 million rupiah into a bank.

If the couple divorce, the wife will be entitled to take the money. If they stick together for at least 10 years, they can claim it as 'shared property'. 'The provision... is intended to protect the rights of women and their children if their husbands neglect, fail to provide for, leave Indonesia secretly... divorce or do anything which harms their interests,' the Bill says.

Read the full story in Wednesday's edition of The Straits Times.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE