RI'S DIVORCE RATE UP 40 PERCENT

Jakarta, Aug. 15 (ANTARA) - The divorce rate in Indonesia has increased by more than 40 percent over the past five years, according to an official.

"Around two million couples get married annually, and on the other hand, roughly 200,000 couples divorce annually. The divorce rate is 10 percent of the marriage rate, it's very big," Nasaruddin Umar, the religious affairs ministry's director general for Islamic public guidance, said here on Saturday.

In fact, almost 70 percent of those asking for divorces were women, and only 30 percent husbands who wanted to divorce their wives, he said.

"It's because women have become smarter, stable, protected by laws, and more aware of their rights and gender equality," he said.

There were at least 13 excuses for asking divorces, namely they did not match to each other any longer, household violence, polygamy, economic, unregistered marriage, a big gap of the couples' ages.

"Even political factor has played a significant role, for instance the husband voted a certain candidate, the wife chose a different candidate. This political factor has affected couples in the village level to provincial and national levels," he said.

However, he noticed there was a trend that the divorce rate would decrease in 2009 as the situation has become more stable after the start of the reform movement in 1998.