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.

“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.

Elizabeth Ghozali, a lecturer in criminal law at Santo Thomas Catholic University in Medan, said the trauma experienced by survivors was probably one of several factors taken into account by the judge in handing down the life sentence.

“The impact of the rapes will be a life sentence for [the survivors] too. Other factors that may have added to the judge’s reasoning in this case were Wirawan’s position as a caregiver to these children and someone who was supposed to protect them,” she said.

Ghozali added that Wirawan had reportedly solicited donations from the public to support the Islamic boarding school, which added another layer of complexity to his crimes.

“There was also fraud there with the solicitation of funds from the public to take care of his own children and the victims who should have been his responsibility,” she said, adding that the children, who came from less well-off backgrounds, were helpless and away from their parents.

“They were entirely under his control and he used that power and charisma to commit his crimes. His mens rea [intent] was evil.”

It is not yet clear if Wirawan will appeal his sentence. If the life sentence is upheld, his only chance of release will be as a result of being granted clemency by the president, which is unlikely in the case of a convicted paedophile.

“The verdict is a signal to other judges and to the government that we have to monitor these kinds of institutions more closely,” Ghozali said.

“This was a systemic failure, not just of the police, but of all the other institutions and social safety nets that should have protected these children including government departments, child protective services and the local community.

“This sentence is a warning. Not just a warning to law enforcement, but to everyone.”