Reconstructing Children’s Maintenance In Islamic Family Law: Rethinking The Free Nutritious Meal Program As A Shared Welfare Responsibility

Abstract

This article reconstructs the legal relationship between parental maintenance and state responsibility for children's nutritional rights through Indonesia's Free Nutritious Meal Program (Makan Bergizi Gratis/MBG). Recent studies already recognize complementarity between MBG and parental support; this study develops that proposition into differentiated rules on obligations, service standards, and accountability. It employs normative legal research using statutory, conceptual, and Islamic legal approaches. The analysis distinguishes the juridical-personal obligation of maintenance from the material-functional provision of nutrition. Parents retain their respective family-law duties, including the father's financial responsibility under the applicable provisions, while MBG provides a public nutritional service. Public provision does not automatically discharge maintenance or authorize unilateral deductions from an existing award. The proposed Complementary-Guarantee Responsibility Model connects family responsibility, program-specific standards, and wider protective intervention when children's needs remain unmet. Its evaluative criteria translate ḥifẓ al-nafs, ḥifẓ al-ʿaql, ḥifẓ al-nasl, ḥifẓ al-māl, maṣlaḥah, and substantive justice into identifiable duties, indicators, and corrective responses. The guarantee is a normative reconstruction grounded in existing law, not a claim that MBG already creates an unlimited, judicially enforceable entitlement to complete daily nutrition. The study contributes operational boundaries for shared welfare responsibility while acknowledging that household responses and program outcomes require empirical investigation.