A new app has been developed in the Muslim-majority country of Indonesia that is designed to help men find polygamous relationships through the internet, The Jakarta Post has revealed.
Set for launch in October, the app, known as AyoPoligami, meaning “let’s do polygamy,” describes itself as a “platform that works to match male users with women ready to be part of a large family.”
Meanwhile, an image used to promote the app shows a cartoon family of a man accompanied by four women wearing niqabs and burqas, as well as three young children.
The app was initially launched in April this year and downloaded over 10,000 times before being taken down pending a relaunch after Muslim clerics raised concerns with the app’s compatibility with Islam.
Many women also complained that men were using the app without their wife’s prior permission, leading to the app’s founder, Lindu Cipta Pranayama, deciding to remove it from the app store and redesign it.
“When we first started out AyoPoligami, it was like any other social media platform. So we were positive thinking about it,” he told Indonesian outlet Kumparan. “I have sinned for letting such things happened on the platform.”
Therefore, users of the app must now provide official identification as well as a letter from the first wife consenting to the husband’s pursuit of other women. In Indonesia, men are permitted up to four wives, so long as the first wife grants permission.
“I don’t think the application will be popular,“ Bonar Tigor Naispospos of the Setara Institute, told the Telegraph. “Many women, even the religiously devout, disagree.”
Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world, with 90 percent of the country’s 280 million population identifying as Muslim. Over recent years, hardline Muslims have successfully pressured the government into conceding to a number of their Sharia-related demands.
In January, a group of political parties in the Indonesian parliament proposed a total ban on alcohol, including the production, distribution and sale of it in the country. Last year, the government agreed to block dozens of gay websites and apps in the country, as well as a series of news magazine sites tailored to an LGBT audience.
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