The Post’s team members working on the stories are Bambang Muryanto in Yogyakarta, Gemma Holliani Cahya, Sita Dewi and Evi Mariani in Jakarta.

These are the stories we collected from survivors who were allegedly sexually abused or harassed by their lecturers in Bandung, Semarang and Bali. The university authorities have received the reports but none of the lecturers have been fired. One is still teaching and two others either resigned or was told to resign.

Three selfies per day

Nandini, not her real name, was in her fourth semester when she first met Ardi (also not his real name), then a lecturer with the Faculty of Communication Sciences at Padjadjaran University (Unpad) in Bandung, West Java.

She recalled Ardi as lecturer who had a reputation; her seniors had warned the juniors to be cautious around him when they took his class. Female students were advised to never meet him alone.

“There was this unwritten rule on ‘How to survive Ardi’s class’ and at first I thought they were exaggerating,” Nandini told The Jakarta Post recently.

Nandini later found out that Ardi often asked students to do unusual tasks. She still remembers that during that semester, a few years ago, Ardi asked all the female students to send him their selfies every day to his WhatsApp number, with different captions for each picture.

“[We were asked to send] three different selfies every day. He didn’t tell us why and we were afraid to ask him because he threatened to lower our scores if we refused,” Nandini said. “He asked me several times to go out with him but I always politely refused.”

Another survivor, Budi, also not his real name, told the Post that Ardi did not only target female students but male ones as well.

“He often asked male students to stay over at his house and follow him around wherever he went,” Budi said. “We also had to stand by every hour of every day because once he said he wanted to meet to discuss something we must be there immediately, even if it was 10 p.m.”

One evening, Nandini could not take it any longer.

That night Ardi asked several students to meet him in a cafe in Bandung. Nandini and her friends came and sat together in one corner of the cafe with Ardi. Nandini said she did not remember what they were talking about but she remembered Ardi coming closer and suddenly kissing her on the forehead.

“I was so shocked that night. I couldn’t clearly remember the rest of the night but I remembered that night in my room I felt so upset for about happened at the cafe and everything that he did to me and I started to cry. I then called my dad and told him everything.”

When Nandini and her father decided to report the case to the faculty head, other survivors, at least five male and two female students, joined her.

“What happened to me might be mild compared to what happened to them,” she said, adding that she was greatly encouraged because she had the full support from most of the students in her class.

Budi said not everyone affiliated with the faculty was happy with their move to report the alleged abuse.

“Some alumni told us that what we did [reporting the abuse] would tarnish the campus’ reputation,” he said.

A person who was close to the case and who requested anonymity told the Post that an ethics hearing was eventually set up, resulting in the lecturer resigning from his post. “This was the last [gender-based] abuse case at the faculty. There were such abuse cases in the past, but this particular case is probably the only one that resulted in the [forced] resignation of the perpetrator,” the person said.

Ardi’s name remains on the Research, Technology and Higher Education Ministry’s database as an active lecturer, but current faculty dean Dadang Rahmat Hidayat ensured that it was merely an administrative error. “I can assure you that he’s not with the faculty any longer — that’s the faculty’s final decision,” he told the Post.

Calling the collaboration #NamaBaikKampus (#CampusReputation), The Jakarta Post, Tirto.id and VICE Indonesia look into survivors’ stories and how the university authorities responded when they received sexual abuse reports. (JP/Budhi Button)

‘He still walks free’

In 2016, Dias, not her real name, was determined to finish her studies at the School of Humanities at Diponegoro University, Semarang, Central Java. Only a week after the Idul Fitri celebration, she went to the university.

It was quiet that day as many students were still on holiday. She met Kodir, not his real name, one of his lecturers, at her department.

“At that time, my thesis was already done. He is not my thesis supervisor, but he said he wanted to see my thesis so he could offer his insight,” Dias told #NamaBaikKampus.

While talking to her, Dias could feel Kodir’s hand slowly caressing her back and hands. His fingers also went down to touch her thighs. She froze in shock. At one point, Kodir tried to kiss her but she dodged it.

 “I was confused and scared so I did not do anything at first. But then I told my friends, one of my lecturers and the head of the department about the incident,” she said.

The department then asked Dias to write a detailed report about what happened and handed it to the faculty dean. She later found out that she was the fourth female student who had reported Kodir to the faculty, but she believed many other victims probably did not speak up.

“A few days after I reported him he would still casually greet me, touch my back and ask me how my thesis defense went,” she said.

Even weeks after Dias reported Kodir, she still saw see him around campus, teaching as usual like nothing happened.

“I asked the faculty about the case and they said because it was not a serious offense and they only imposed a ‘social sanction’ on Kodir. I didn’t understand what a social sanction even meant, but I felt so upset because he could still comfortably teach on campus,” she said. “The lecturers already knew about Kodir’s reputation so I don’t understand why they still let him teach.”

Separately, a top official at the school, who requested anonymity, told Tirto.id that it was difficult to fire a lecturer for alleged sexual misconduct, but he said he did what he could to prevent Kodir from harassing more students.

Read also: Universities turn a blind eye to sexual harassment, abuse

Revenge porn

Twenty-year-old Meliana first thought that Ipeng (not his real name), 26, was someone she could trust. After all he was her lecturer at the Graduate School of Information Management and Computer Engineering (STMIK) Primakara in Bali.

The young lecturer appeared to be cool, easygoing and had his own way of making students easily understand subjects in his class. Meliana and her fellow students had respect for him. Many, including Meliana, wanted to hang out with him. They eventually hung out and went to the movies together with the lecturer.

One day, Ipeng asked Meliana to come to his parents’ house and played Xbox with him. Meliana agreed.

“He said more friends will join. The Xbox was in his room and I wasn’t worried about anything because it was his parents’ house and his mom was at home,” Meliana told VICE Indonesia recently.

But the friends that Ipeng said would come never came and he started asking her to sleep with him.

“I rejected him and went home safely that day,” she said, adding that Ipeng even apologized to her.

Months after the first incident, Ipeng asked Meliana to play Xbox at his home once again. Believing that Ipeng had changed, Meliana agreed. But this time, she said her forced her to sleep with him, this time more aggressively.

 “I tried to scream for help. I know his mother and uncles were at home but no one did anything. I understood that it was his territory and I was really afraid that he would kill me, so I decided to play along. I let it happen. I thought it was the safest choice,” she said.

After that day, Ipeng became obsessive over Meliana — he would get upset if she went out with male students on campus, she claimed. He also asked her to have sex with him several times, according to her.

Meliana initially wanted to keep everything to herself but six months after the incident, Ipeng contacted her again via the LINE messenger app.

“He didn’t contact me for months, and that afternoon on June 4, 2018, he texted me. That first text only contained a naked picture of me. And I have no idea how he got it. He tried to call me but I didn’t pick up. After a while he sent me another text. This time, it was a video of us having sex,” she said.

Meliana said she was not aware that the video existed, saying that Ipeng later used them to allegedly blackmail her and ask her to sleep with him, otherwise he would spread the picture and video. Meliana decided to ask for help from her father and friends who subsequently reported Ipeng to the police. He was arrested two months later.

But the legal process was not that smooth, with many coming to defend Ipeng and allegedly bully Meliana who was accused of tarnishing the campus’ reputation.

Meliana took to social media to defend herself, by uploading all the evidence that she had, but the pressure only got worse.

 “Some lecturers even asked me to withdraw the police report and took down my posts on social media […] I know that I have to protect my campus’ reputation, but what about my reputation?” she said.

 “I will not withdraw my report because, if I did, it’s like saying that it’s OK to force your students to have sex with you,” she said.

On July 28, STMIK Primakara announced that Ipeng had resigned from the faculty. In a letter posted on its official Instagram account @stmik_primakara, STMIK Primakara head Wiradharma said the problem that happened between Ipeng and Meliana was a personal issue and the school was not involved.

Meanwhile, the founder and head of the Primakara Foundation, I Made Artana, told VICE Indonesia recently it had handed all the processes with the police.

“The case happened a long time ago and our foundation has been overwhelmed by this,” Artana said.

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Editor’s note: The article did not specify some of the time frames to protect the identity of the survivors who requested us to do so. However, the article uses Meliana's real name to respect her wishes. The collaboration, through VICE Indonesia, has undergone a lengthy process and a number of consultations to ensure that Meliana's wish to use her real name will not harm her.