Indonesia: vice president wants Arabs to pay money for one-night marriage

Indonesia: vice president wants Arabs to pay money for one-night marriage

Jusuf Kalla made the off-the-cuff remarks at a travel industry seminar on how to attract more Arab visitors to Indonesia. It was not clear whether he was joking, though his comments caused laughter in the audience.

Kalla said that many Arab tourists currently traveled to the hill town of Puncak near Jakarta to enter into short-term marriage contracts with Indonesian women.

Women activists say the weddings, which are not recognized by the state but are blessed by Islamic clerics for a fee, they are a form of legalized prostitution and encourage poor families to sell their daughters for sex, according to the AP.