Mass sex abuse allegations force closure of boarding school in Indonesia

Hundreds of people descended on a girls' boarding school in the Indonesian village of Tlogosari, Central Java on 2 May, shouting chants and waving banners. "Women are not sexual objects" read one. Another said, simply, "The Predator". The mob was there to accost and hurl insults at 58-year-old Kiai Ashari, the caretaker of the Ndholo Kusumo Islamic boarding school, as he was escorted away by police. He is suspected of sexually abusing dozens of female students – most of them orphans from poor families – over the course of several years. The case has provoked outrage in Indonesia, and highlights a systemic issue of sexual abuse in Islamic boarding schools across the country. While multiple witnesses who spoke out against Ashari have since withdrawn their testimonies, one victim has now filed an official complaint – and suggested that as many as 50 others fell prey to the caretaker's sexual violence. "[The number of victims] is 30 to 50 children based on the victim's statement," the victim's attorney, Ali Yusron, told the BBC. "I handled one victim, but the legal process tells of many victims. Police said on 4 May that Ashari, who investigators named as a suspect on 28 April, had not