Women's Rights Protection Through Taklik Talak: A Response to Missing Person Problem in Sukahati Village, Bogor, West Java

El-Usrah: Jurnal Hukum Keluarga https://jurnal.ar-raniry.ac.id/index.php/usrah/index ISSN: 2620 – 8075 ║ E-ISSN: 2620 – 8083 Vol. 8. No. 2. December 2025 DOI: 10.22373/ujhk.v8i2.31642 Women's Rights Protection Through Taklik Talak: A Response to Missing Person Problem in Sukahati Village, Bogor, West Java Zaitun Abdullah1, Endra Wijaya1, Amirah2, Shafiyah Rahmah3 1 Faculty of Law, Universitas Pancasila, Jakarta, Indonesia 2 Development Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands 3 Faculty of Law, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia Email: Abstract This research discusses legal issues experienced by women as wives in Sukahati Village, Bogor, West Java. After marriage, their husbands left and never came back or disappeared. In most cases, they solve the problem by managing of what is colloquially called a "certificate of missing person," as a such kind of administrative legal procedure. However, the process of issuing the certificate is quite timeconsuming, causing the wife who is left behind is increasingly experiencing losses, both materially and non-materially. The research discusses the facts how a woman as a wife tries to protect their rights when they were abandoned by their husband and stated legally as a missing person. Using non-doctrinal (empirical) legal research method based on both primary and secondary data, the research concludes that there are still many women as wives who do not understand how to solve problems when they are abandoned by their husbands as missing persons. There is a legal procedure, namely taklik talak, that can be used by women as wives when they experiencing problems with the loss of their husbands. Conceptually, taklik talak is intended to protect the interests of women as wives in a marriage bond. Keywords: Administrative Legal Document; Missing Person; Religious Court; Taklik Talak 853 Zaitun Abdullah, et.al., Women's Rights Protection Through Taklik Talak 854 Abstrak Penelitian ini membahas permasalahan hukum yang dialami oleh perempuan sebagai istri di Desa Sukahati, Bogor, Jawa Barat. Setelah menikah, suami mereka pergi dan tidak pernah kembali atau menghilang. Dalam kebanyakan kasus, mereka menyelesaikan masalah tersebut dengan mengurus apa yang secara umum disebut "surat keterangan orang hilang", sebagai salah satu prosedur hukum administratif. Namun, proses penerbitan surat keterangan tersebut cukup memakan waktu, menyebabkan istri yang ditinggalkan semakin mengalami kerugian, baik materiil maupun non-materiil. Penelitian ini membahas fakta bagaimana seorang perempuan sebagai istri berusaha melindungi hak-haknya ketika ditinggalkan oleh suami dan dinyatakan secara hukum sebagai orang hilang. Dengan menggunakan metode penelitian hukum non-doktrinal (empiris) yang berbasis pada data primer dan sekunder, penelitian ini menyimpulkan bahwa masih banyak perempuan sebagai istri yang belum memahami bagaimana menyelesaikan masalah ketika mereka ditinggalkan oleh suami mereka sebagai orang hilang. Terdapat prosedur hukum, yaitu taklik talak, yang dapat digunakan oleh perempuan sebagai istri ketika mereka mengalami masalah dengan kehilangan suami mereka. Secara konseptual, taklik talak bertujuan untuk melindungi kepentingan perempuan sebagai istri dalam ikatan perkawinan. Kata Kunci: Dokumen hukum administrasi, orang hilang, pengadilan agama, taklik talak Introduction In daily life, women are sometimes subject to being vulnerable to actions that harm their rights as human beings. The cause of such condition can be emerged by several social and cultural factors in society’s daily life.1 One example of detrimental actions that can be experienced by women is when they are in a marital relationship. As study from Aditya and Waddington,2 it explains that in Indonesian social system women are placed in poor or unlucky position rather than man. In marriage, many women as wives experience situations where their husbands leave and never return or disappear. In general, the state of the absence of a person, apart from being commonly referred to as a missing person, can also be referred to as "gaib" person. In relation to the issue of the absence of a person or missing person, civil law expert J. Satrio argues that an absent person is a person who leaves his residence for a relatively long 1 Fajri M Kasim, et.al., “The Protection of Women and Children Post-Divorce in Sharia Courts in Aceh: A Sociological Perspective,” Ahkam 22, No. 2 (2022). Yusna Zaidah and Raihanah Abdullah, “The Relevance of Ihdad Regulations as a Sign of Mourning and Human Rights Restriction,” Journal of Human Rights, Culture and Legal System 4 no. 2 (2024), p. 436-434. 2 Rizky Irfano Aditya and Lisa Waddington, “The Legal Protection Against Child Marriage in Indonesia,” Bestuur 9 no. 2 (2021), p. 128. https://jurnal.ar-raniry.ac.id/index.php/usrah/index Vol. 8 No. 2, December 2025 Zaitun Abdullah, et.al., Women's Rights Protection Through Taklik Talak 855 time without appointing another person to represent and manage his interests. 3 In the context of family law, the problem of missing people can be the cause of cases of neglect, both for abandoned husbands, wives and/or children. According to a study by Hanapi and Risma, that law problem is caused by several factors, namely: first, social and cultural structural conditions which in some places still discriminate against women; second, financial, economic conditions or poverty factors; third, in some places, neglect case that occurs in a family is considered as a private matter that does not need to be interfered with or known by other parties; and fourth, the performance of law enforcement is still weak in handling cases of neglect. These factors ultimately result in many cases of neglect occurring repeatedly in society, especially towards wives and children in the family.4 In connection with those factors, a study from Hariati and Salat also confirm that in several places or cultures in Indonesia is still often found practice that make wife economically dependent on her husband. This action will not only make the wife experience economic discrimination, but will also make her truly helpless when facing neglect by her husband.5 In the legal system in Indonesia, in the context of marriage law, the situation in which one of the married couples disappears is mentioned in the Elucidation of Article 39 paragraph (2) of Law Number 1 of 1974 concerning Marriage. The provision mentions a situation where one of the married couples disappears with the sentence "One party leaves the other for 2 (two) consecutive years without the permission of other party and without a valid reason or for other reasons against his will." This situation then can be used as one of the reasons to cut off the marriage bond legally.6 In the human rights perspective, that provision also reflects that Indonesian marriage law based on Law Number 1 of 1974 concerning Marriage and Law Number 16 of 2019 concerning Amendment to Law Number 1 of 1 (...truncated)