Beyond Immoral Violence

Last April, YY, a 14-year-old teenager and a second-year junior high school student at Padang Ulak Tanding, Bengkulu, was brutally raped and murdered. The rapists smothered the young girl walking home from school through a rubber plantation. They then took turns raping her before tossing her into a ravine. When her body was found, she was bound and naked except for a torn singlet. The body had multiple wounds and had begun to decompose.

A week after this barbaric incident, arrests of the perpetrators began. They were 12 men and youths, seven of them underage. Two remain on the loose. The Attorney-General's Office in Curup, Rejang Lebong, however, is only asking for a sentence of 10 years for those it has processed. This is two-thirds of the maximum stipulated in the Law on Child Protection.

May 10, 2016