Our head teacher was an abuser. We joined forces to get justice - now we're married
Two former students of an Indonesian boarding school have exposed their head teacher for systemic sexual abuse after recording his attempts to silence them. The couple, who married after bonding over their pursuit of justice, are highlighting the challenges of seeking accountability in religious educational institutions.
Why it matters
The story sheds light on the prevalence of sexual abuse in isolated educational settings and the difficulty victims face in obtaining legal recourse.
Image caption, Zia and Yusron were both star pupils at a boarding school in Lombok
Warning: This story contains details of sexual assault
The voice on the end of the phone made Yusron Azzahidi's stomach lurch. He had rung his sister's number after she had texted, urgently asking him to call. But this was not her on the line - it was Yusron's former head teacher. He was in Yusron's family home.
"I knew. I knew exactly what he wanted to talk about," Yusron says.
Ahmad Imanuddin Sumar, known to his students as "Abah" ["father"], had a reputation to uphold. He was the widely respected leader of an Islamic boarding school on the Indonesian island of Lombok. And Abah had discovered that Yusron and his old school friends had been collating testimony from several students who say he sexually assaulted them.
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