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o one argues that sexual abuse '€” particularly when victims are minors '€” is not a serious crime. Unfortunately, Thursday'€™s verdicts on two teaching staff at the Jakarta Intercultural School (JIS) have failed to set a good precedent in the fight against sexual abuse, as many have questioned the legal process.

On Thursday, the South Jakarta District Court sentenced Canadian Neil Bantleman and Indonesian Ferdinant Tjiong to 10 years'€™ imprisonment each for abusing three students at the school between January 2013 and March 2014. Both will appeal the verdicts. The case broke at the school early last year with initial accusations that cleaners had abused a student, which were followed by claims of abuse by a number of other parents.

The defense, however, said their evidence was largely dismissed. They questioned the judges who accepted the testimony of a psychologist who said that a '€œmagic stone'€ had been inserted into the anus of a boy so that he would feel no pain when being molested by Bantleman, but the stone was never presented as evidence.

The defense statements included a medical report issued by a hospital in Singapore in May 2014 stating that there were no signs of sexual assault in one examined victim. The report was certified by Singapore'€™s High Court in February 2015 but was dismissed by the court.

Tough sentences for perpetrators of sexual abuse should serve as deterrence to others from committing such crimes. A questionable legal process will discourage victims, particularly children and their parents, from reporting alleged abuse and seeking legal redress. Therefore, the appeal of the teaching staff and also the earlier appeal of the cleaners convicted before them will hopefully end in a clear settlement of the cases.

The police even admitted to having tortured the cleaners while they were in custody; one of them subsequently died, as a result of suicide according to the police. But while even this admission might have made no difference, the case of a religious teacher reported to police a few years ago for having molested several of his students has not been settled either.

Schools should be the safest of havens after the home, for our children. Therefore, any report of sexual abuse in schools should be a wake-up call for any school management about the importance of creating a monitoring mechanism to prevent such crimes. The handling of the reports by the police and other law enforcers, schools and parents, will largely determine whether children can have a safe space to report such abuse.

It is also important for law enforcers to carry out thorough and unbiased investigations of sexual-abuse cases involving schools, not just the high-profile ones like the JIS case, about which the US Ambassador Robert O. Blake has clearly voiced that '€œwe are deeply disappointed with this outcome.'€

Meanwhile, the city police are handling another alleged sexual-abuse case at another international-standard school. A thorough investigation and fair trial may hurt the school'€™s reputation '€” but will improve the overall picture, which is now bleak regarding the protection of our children.