It is universally acknowledged that children are the next generation to preserve the continuation of the world. Saving their future means saving the humankind and its civilisation from extinction. But what if saving the humankind and its legacy becomes the very reason that destroy the society? What if saving the humankind by reckless reproduction planning only creates overpopulation, crime, and war? What if some people feel the need to play Thomas Malthus and being complicit in raging war? Then, would it be controversial to say that the future generation must be created with cautions? Would it be self-centred to take longer time to indulge adolescence and forge adulthood in a timely manner before preparing the mind and body for giving birth to another living being? In the western hemisphere where individual freedom is enshrined, these questions might receive a positive answer. But, in the Southern hemisphere, where traditions and customary laws gave no chance on the rights to choose, these ideas would be condemned.

When I was a young girl, I remembered my parents drove me home from extensive preparation to enter high school. As they chattered on the front seats, I was drawn into my own thoughts, enjoying solitary moment while staring at the trees we passed by. However, when we stopped at the traffic lamp, my attention caught onto a pregnant girl who was walking unsteadily along the crossover. She looked like my seniors at high-school. I bet her age was not more than 18 year-old. Her bloated tummy seemed heavy under her strained shoulders. Behind her, some elementary pupils who were still in their red and white uniforms pacing up briskly and laughing at something, probably some jokes which can only be understood by their peers. As I looked at that distraction, my mind wonder, “Why can’t people stop producing offsprings especially at a very young age?”. My school was crowded with newly elementary graduates racing up to the administration room. When I visited to my future high school for registration, I faced the same situation. These kids came from nowhere! Still, hundreds of them were scattered around the streets, dirty public spaces, and slumps. Neglected without proper housing and education. The world’s getting dense but women keep giving birth to a baby number 10.

As I tried to find the answer for my concern, I later assumed that the one main factor of this overpopulation was the society’s expectation. The expectation to preserve the human kind, which can only be achieved by keep producing children. In Indonesia, we were even taught that the future of Indonesia lays on the hands of the future generation. The more the children the bigger the chance to defend the country. However, this huge arsenal of military might should come at what cost? Do we want to bet Indonesia’s supremacy on the hands of uneducated and feeble Indonesians? Do we want to trust their characters to be shaped by 17 year-old who were not even ready for childbearing? both physically and mentally?

I might offend some people but many years later and after graduating with a degree in Politics, I believe that reproduction should be controlled! and women who is considered to be the “Holy Grail” must have rights to choose! This is crucial since women are the ones who are responsible to raise the future generation, at least in the world where patriarchal traditions and customary law remain imposed. Giving girls the rights to choose, would in fact, prepare them to be better mothers who raise brilliant children. Hence, creating a better chance for the society and humanity to survive.

Unfortunately, as put by Engle’s in The Origin of Family, Private Property, and The State (1884), “The overthrow of mother-right was world  historical defeat of female-sex. Men took command in home also and women was degraded and reduce to servitude. She became the slave of his lust and a mere instrument of the production of children.”

According to http://www.care.org, one of nine girls is forced into marriage before her fifteenth birthday. Previously, I signed petition in http://www.thepetitionsite.com to stop force marriage in Yemen for an eight year old girl named Rawan, who must face a nightmare of having premature intercourse with her 40 years old husband. Al Jazeera reported that in Sub-Saharan Africa, 37% women are married before her 18 birthday. Meanwhile UNICEF calculated that 46% women in South Asia of age 20-24 were married before entering age of 18.  With over 200 million women around the world are incapable to use contraception (Planned Parenthood Federation) it is relevant if 45.5 in 1000 women population would have given a birth within age of 15-19 (world bank database 2013). In result, there would have been 4.3 birth in every second.

Next year, Indonesia will be facing ASEAN Community aiming for economic integrity as well as tighten the bond of Southern Asia citizens within culture and borderless civilization. But, would Indonesia be ready if 22% of young girls population still enter marriage before age of eighteen?

In the meantime, 2.5 million children drop out from schools (UNICEF 2012), 17% childbirth conducted without proper procedures (Every Child Counts, 2014), and 40 of 1000 toddler population declared dead from malnutrition and maternal ignorance. The projection might be our nation-youth become subordinates within their own nation-state.

Globally, started in the late September 2014, Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), formed The Post-2015 Development Agenda to discuss eleven thematic agendas concerning conflict and fragile, education, environmental sustainability, governance, growth and employment, health, hunger, food and nutrition, inequalities, population dynamics, energy and water. This is the defining moment for women’s rights to demand an amendment to rise marriageable age of female consent.

If the society really care about the humankind, then save the future mothers. Let them be the authorities to plan maternity, education method of raising children, and financial independence. Focus, must be targeted on the parenthood. Women rights to postpone the parenthood in the sake of personal development should be taken seriously.  And hopefully, girls will be the society’s partner to save the humankind, preserving their civilization. Save her the time to thrive. It is not too late.