Indonesian paedophile Herry Wirawan’s life term, rather than castration, a ‘warning’ to predators
An Islamic studies teacher who impregnated eight of the 13 children he raped is to receive a punishment usually reserved for terrorists and serial killers
While prosecutors had pushed for castration and death, experts say the term will act as a deterrent and is appropriate in a case that highlighted systemic failure
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/article/3167254/indonesian-paedophile-herry-wirawans-life-term-rather-castration-warning
When Islamic studies teacher Herry Wirawan was handed a life sentence by an Indonesian court on Tuesday for raping 13 students aged between 13 and 16, he became the first convicted rapist to receive such a hefty sentence.
In Southeast Asia’s largest economy, the maximum recommended sentence for the rape of a minor is 15 years, although judges have the power to hand down heftier sentences as they see fit.
Wirawan, 36, had impregnated at least eight of the 13 children between 2016 and 2021 at the boarding school he ran. The prosecution in Bandung, a city two hours from the capital Jakarta, pushed for the death penalty and chemical castration, citing the extent of physical, emotional and psychological harm done to the children. Prosecutor Asep N Mulyana also asked that Wirawan’s identity be made public.
The case sparked fury across Indonesia and President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has watched its development closely according to government officials. The verdict has prompted great debate online, not least because a life term for a paedophile is unusual.
Life terms in Indonesia are usually reserved for crimes such as terrorism or murder cases in which there have been multiple victims or particularly nefarious factors such as mutilation or necrophilia.
Ranto Sibarani, a human rights lawyer based in Medan who handles child sexual abuse cases, said the life term for Wirawan was appropriate.
“We should reject the practice of the state sentencing anyone to die,” he said, adding he hoped it set a precedent for law enforcers to continue severely punishing perpetrators of sexual abuse.
Sibarani recently supported the families in a similar case in which Benyamin Sitepu, a 37-year-old Christian priest and principal of the Galilea Hosana School in Medan, received a 10 year sentence in January for sexually abusing six of his female students. At the time, Sibarani lambasted the verdict as “disappointing” and called for religious and educational institutions to do more to monitor their staff.
“In the Herry Wirawan case, there was also a state failure,” he said, pointing out the number of victims and that authorities were slow to follow up on reports of sexual abuse by a parent of a student that Wirawan had impregnated.
“[This provided] an opportunity for the perpetrator to find other victims. Law enforcement must be more alert and reactive, and routinely conduct checks on schools to ensure that there is no sexual harassment by teachers or religious leaders. There must be a mechanism aimed at ensuring that these children do not become victims of sexual harassment in schools or houses of worship.”
In recent years, Indonesia has seen a spate of child sexual abuse cases linked to educational and religious institutions.
On January 20, Lukas Lucky Ngalngola (alias Brother Angelo), a Catholic priest who ran an orphanage on the outskirts of Jakarta, was jailed for 14 years for sexually abusing the children under his care. In 2020, the head of an Islamic boarding school in Aceh province was sentenced to 15 years in prison for sexually assaulting 15 of his male students.
Medan-based psychologist, Irna Minauli, who is often called as an expert witness in child abuse cases and gave testimony in the Benyamin Sitepu case, hoped Wirawan’s sentence would act as a deterrent to others.
“In learning psychology there is something known as vicarious learning where a person will learn about the consequences of their behaviour by seeing the consequences experienced by other people doing the same actions.”
But the problem in Indonesia was that punishments were inconsistent across jurisdictions in the archipelago, which has more than 17,000 islands administered as 34 provinces, Minauli said.
“As a result of this inconsistency, even if someone does get a severe punishment like Herry Wirawan, other criminals will consider it just ‘bad luck’. There needs to be legal certainty so that vicarious learning can be formed,” Minauli said.
Wirawan had been accused of deliberately exploiting vulnerable children from low socio-economic backgrounds as many of his victims attended the boarding school on scholarships. Minauli said besides trauma inflicted on the survivors of his crimes, there was a possibility the “unwanted” children from the rapes would face emotional and behavioural issues.