Cak Imin Proposes Teaching Santri Personal Rights to Prevent Sexual Abuse

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - Coordinating Minister for Community Empowerment Muhaimin Iskandar has suggested that Islamic boarding schools provide teaching on orientation regarding personal rights to their students to prevent cases of sexual abuse.

According to Cak Imin, his familiar nickname, cases of sexual violence occurring in Islamic boarding schools are a result of the students’ lack of knowledge about their personal rights.

“Before starting at the pesantren, santri must receive orientation on their rights so that they cannot be manipulated. The problem of this happening is due to a lack of awareness of their personal rights,” said Cak Imin at Plaza BPJamsostek, South Jakarta, on Friday (8/5/2026).

He assessed that many santri are still unaware of their personal rights while undergoing education at Islamic boarding schools.

According to him, the molestation of female santri in Pati serves as a real example of power relation imbalances and the use of religious doctrine as a modus operandi to manipulate victims.

Nevertheless, Cak Imin believes that no true ulama intends to exploit their santri for bad purposes.

“No ulama exploits their santri unless that person has had manipulative intentions from the start. Like in the Pati case, he was never known at all,” he said.

This case was actually reported as early as 2024, while the molestation of the victims is suspected to have occurred since 2020.

However, the police claimed that the handling process after the 2024 report was delayed due to attempts at family-style resolution from the victims’ side.

Recently, the police have named Ashari, the caregiver of the pesantren, as a suspect and arrested him in Wonogiri, Central Java.