An Indonesian court sentenced a teacher to life in prison on Tuesday (February 15th) for the rape of 13 students, in a case that highlights a problem of sexual abuse in faith-based schools in the southeastern country.
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Herry Wirawan was found guilty of repeatedly raping 13 teenage girls, all minors — who later gave birth to nine children — by a court in Bandung, West Java province. The accused was “found guilty of forcing children to have sex with him while he was their teacher” and “is sentenced to life imprisonmentsaid senior judge Yohannes Purnomo Suryo Adi.
Death penalty and chemical castration
The victims, most of whom were scholarship holders, came from poor families and lived in the Islamic boarding school he co-founded, suffered the abuse over a period of 5 years, the lawsuit revealed. It was a complaint filed last year with the police by the parents of a student who had become pregnant which had triggered the investigation in the school and brought to light the numerous abuses against the students. The 36-year-old teacher kept his head down as he listened to the three-judge panel verdict. He had previously appealed to the judges for clemency, saying he wanted to raise his children, according to his lawyer. The prosecution had requested the death penalty and chemical castration in this case which had provoked a wave of indignation in the country. The judges specified that the damages to the victims would be paid by the authorities.
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Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, has some 25,000 Islamic boarding schools, orponderrenwhere nearly five million young people study and live. The teaching there is often very strict, the students follow a classical education during the day and study the Koran in the evening. But the Bandung trial has highlighted a problem of sexual abuse in some of these establishments, with 14 out of 18 cases reported last year involving Islamic boarding schools, according to the National Commission for the Protection of Children.