Apriadi Gunawan, Tanjungbalai – Police are investigating the case of two female Indonesian migrant workers who managed to officially marry each other after returning from Malaysia.
The illegal marriage between the two women was revealed after the one posing as the husband, known as Farel, gave birth in the home village of her spouse in Tanjungbalai, North Sumatra.
Indonesia, which recognizes marriage as union between a man and a woman, outlaws same-sex marriage.
Farel's identity was revealed after locals found a newborn baby dumped on Jl. Sei Kenagan, some 50 meters from her wife's house, on Thursday. Residents confronted the couple after becoming suspicious that it was Farel who had abandoned the baby.
Daman Wuri, a resident who lives nearby, said locals were shocked by the incident. "Farel told us she was a widower with a child, so we were not suspicious when she married Salmah," he said.
Tanjungbalai police spokesperson Adj. Comr. Y Sinulingga said Farel had admitted that the baby was hers and she dumped the baby to cover her disguise.
Farel married Salmah in Tanjungbalai on Nov. 30. Both worked as migrant workers in Malaysia before the marriage. Two days after the wedding, Farel went back to Malaysia while Salmah stayed in her hometown. Farel returned about a week before the birth.
Salmah told the police that she did not know Farel was a woman. She said she had not been intimate with her "husband" after the wedding. She also denied deliberately having a same-sex marriage, saying that she wouldn't have married Farel if she had known that she was a woman. "I am still normal," she said. (wit)