The proprietor of an Islamic boarding college in Indonesia was convicted Tuesday of raping 13 of his underage college students — fathering 9 youngsters along with his victims — and was sentenced to life in jail.
A courtroom within the metropolis of Bandung on the island of Java discovered Herry Wirawan, 36, responsible of raping the women, ages 11 to 16, repeatedly and systematically over a interval of 5 years.
The allegations in opposition to Mr. Herry outraged Indonesians and centered nationwide consideration on the difficulty of kid safety at privately run non secular colleges, which quantity within the tens of 1000’s. Officers mentioned President Joko Widodo had been following the case carefully.
The three-judge panel determined in opposition to imposing the demise penalty and chemical castration, because the prosecution had sought. President Joko signed a regulation in 2020 permitting for the chemical castration of convicted baby rapists.
Mr. Herry, who had taught Arabic at an elementary college, based the all-girl Madani Boarding Faculty, or pesantren, in Bandung in 2016 and attracted college students from poor households by providing scholarships.
The rapes got here to mild final yr after one of many victims returned dwelling and her household found she was pregnant.
Eight of the women turned pregnant — certainly one of them twice — and gave delivery to 9 youngsters. The infants have been delivered at an area clinic or the houses of midwives after which cared for by Mr. Herry’s mother and father and sisters, mentioned his legal professional, Ira Margaretha Mambo.
The oldest of the youngsters shouldn’t be but 5, she mentioned.
Mr. Herry pleaded with the courtroom for leniency as the only supplier for his spouse and their two youngsters.
Of their verdict, the judges concluded that Mr. Herry, who additionally taught faith on the college, had brainwashed the scholars so successfully that “they couldn’t even distinguish proper from fallacious.”
Mr. Herry groomed his victims, the courtroom discovered, by isolating them from their households, making them depend upon him as their supplier and giving them safety and luxury.
“They’re too younger to know the method of what they have been getting,” the judges concluded. “The ladies even appear to really feel they owe him a debt of gratitude.”
In seducing the women, the judges mentioned, Mr. Herry would begin by asking for a therapeutic massage after which inform his sufferer that he couldn’t have intercourse along with his spouse as a result of she didn’t wish to have many youngsters.
He additionally informed the women that their trainer should be “obeyed and revered,” the judges discovered. If his victims resisted, he would tear off their garments.
When one scholar informed Mr. Herry she was pregnant, he informed her she didn’t want an abortion as a result of he would take duty for the child.
He promised different women that he would pay for his or her schooling and, in at the least one case, he informed a sufferer he would marry her.
The judges mentioned the life sentence was not supposed as revenge in opposition to the defendant however was aimed toward defending the general public from comparable crimes sooner or later.
The case, which highlighted the widespread drawback of sexual harassment and abuse of girls in Indonesia, has renewed requires passage of laws aimed toward lowering sexual violence and the harassment of girls. Ladies’s rights activists say that Indonesia’s present legal guidelines don’t adequately defend girls, and so they have pushed for almost a decade to win passage of the measure.
In 2019, a college bookkeeper who recorded her boss’s lewd cellphone name as proof she was being harassed was ordered by Indonesia’s Supreme Courtroom to serve at the least six months in jail for distributing obscene materials. Her boss, the varsity principal, went unpunished and as a substitute was promoted repeatedly. President Joko later granted her amnesty.
Supply: NY Times
