IN Banjar Pekandelan, Karangasem, Bali, a 16-year-old girl confines herself to her room. For a month now, Melati (not her real name) has been absent from school. The women in the banjara hamlet associationare also gloomy thinking about what has befallen Melati, a karate athlete.

Two weeks ago, all members of the banjar got together and came to an agreement that they would no longer talk about what had happened to Melati. The management of the se