Marriage is a contract between two partners consisting of a man and a woman in equal positions. A woman as the party who equal to men can set the desired conditions as well as men. Marriage basically means engaging with conversations about affection (mawaddah wa rahmah), and this is the basic foundation of a marriage. However, in reality there are still many marriages in Indonesia, gender differences greatly affect the rate of divorce with Domestic Violence (KDRT) or discrimination because of gender. Based on this, students of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Yogyakarta State University (FIS UNY) initiated a research on pre-marital programs based on gender equality. Through this research, he succeeded in making achievements in international student innovation competitions. The FIS UNY delegation team won a gold award at the World Youth Invention and Innovation Award (WYIIA) competition on 15 – 20 August 2021.

The FIS UNY delegation team was one of the finalists in this world event where the team consisted of Vera Ananda Aguswati, a 2019 Social Science Education student, Dinda Bariqul Zahfa, a 2019 Geography Education student, Syarifah Nur’Aini, a 2019 Communication Studies student, and Embun Ayudya Pawestri, a 2018 Sociology Education student. The FIS delegation team in this event brought up the issue of marriage and gender equality in Indonesia. The innovation developed is a gender equality-based pre-marital education program.

Departing from concerns about the high rate of divorce and violence against women in the household. This team carried out preliminary research with a literature study and found that the existence of domestic violence was due to low marriage preparation and understanding of the concept of gender equality. Therefore, the idea that arises is a pre-marital certificate which is used as a condition for marriage after taking pre-marital education based on gender equality.

“Understanding of gender equality and its implementation in marriage in Indonesia is very low, this is what prompted us to initiate a gender equality-based marriage regulation,” explained Vera Ananda. This team was also accompanied by a lecturer as a supervisor from the Social Sciences Education Study Program, FIS UNY, Yumi Hartati, M.Pd. Implementation of the initial research activities the team conducted an analysis of issues, data in the literature. The implementation of this student innovation competition is carried out online with presentations in English. The presentation session was quite a challenge for Vera and the team. However, at the awarding ceremony, the UNY Faculty of Social Sciences team won a gold medal. Vera and the team also plan to develop ideas as program recommendations that can be implemented as an effort to instill the value of gender equality in Indonesia in collaboration with KOMNAS Perempuan, the Ministry of Religion, and other related institutions.