An Indonesian court yesterday sentenced a teacher to life in prison for the rape of 13 students, in a case that has drawn national attention to sexual abuse in some of the nation’s religious boarding schools.
Bandung District Court in West Java found Herry Wirawan guilty of raping 13 female students, all minors, and impregnating at least eight of them.
During the trial, it was revealed that he had raped the children — many from poor families attending the school on scholarships — over five years.
Photo: AFP
The pattern of abuse came to light when the family of a female student last year reported Wirawan to the police for raping and impregnating their teenage daughter.
The revelations have sparked national outrage, with a senior government official saying Indonesian President Joko Widodo has paid special attention to the case.
Prosecutors had asked for chemical castration and the death penalty for the accused.
Wirawan, 36, arrived in court in handcuffs and kept his head down as Judge Yohannes Purnomo Suryo Adi sentenced him to life in prison.
He had asked the judge for leniency to allow him to raise his children.
The court also said restitution for the victims would be paid by the government.
Indonesian National Child Protection Commission Chairman Susanto said that yesterday’s verdict meant that “justice for the victims has been served.”
More than 25,000 Islamic boarding schools — known as pesantren — are dotted across Indonesia, with nearly 5 million students living and studying in the dorms.
Teaching is often regimented — students attend regular classes during the day, and continue Koranic studies and Islamic teachings into the evening.
The Bandung rape case has shone a spotlight on the problem of sexual abuse in some of the schools, with 14 out of the 18 cases reported to the National Child Protection Commission last year taking place in pesantren.
Last year, two teachers at a boarding school in South Sumatra were arrested for sexually abusing 26 male students over the course of a year.
In 2020, a boarding school leader in East Java was sentenced to 15 years in prison for sexually assaulting 15 female students.
Widodo last month called on parliament to approve a bill on the “elimination of sexual violence,” which seeks to combat sex crimes and provide justice to victims, including in cases of marital rape.
The bill was drafted in 2016, but has run into delays, with Islamic groups complaining it promoted promiscuity, and conservative lawmakers calling for it to criminalize extramarital sex and LGBT relationships.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to