An 83-year-old Indonesian shaman in Sulawesi province has been arrested for keeping a female sex slave since she was 12 years old. The woman, now 28 years old, has been missing since 2003.
The shaman, who has only been identified as “JG” or “Jago,” tricked the woman into believing that the spirit of young boy named Amrin possessed him. The woman believed that Amrin was her boyfriend.
Jago said that he had had sexual relations with the woman, only identified by the police as “H,” since 2008, although “H” claims that they had been having sexual relations since the time of her first disappearance in 2003, when she was only 12 years old.
Jago is now facing charges under Indonesia’s child protection laws, which means he could serve the maximum sentence of 15 years imprisonment.
He told the parents of the girl in 2003 that she had gone to Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, to go to work. In reality, though, Jago kept her during daylight hours in a jungle cave by the village of Bajugan, for more than 15 years. At night, she would stay at a hut near his home.
Acting on a tip, police found her in the cave, and rescued her on Sunday, August 4. Bajugan is in Tolitoli regency, in Indonesia’s Central Sulawesi province.
The tip came from the woman’s own sister, who told neighbors that she was in the vicinity. This sister is married to the son of Jago.
Jago tricked H into having sex with him by telling her that he was possessed with the spirit or “jin” of a young boy. According to Muhammad Iqbal Alqudusy, Central Sulawesi Police Chief, Jago showed a photo of a young boy to H.
Chief Iqbal said, “She was led to believe that Amrin’s spirit had entered [the elderly man’s] body. It is obvious that he was satisfying his lust.”
While most of Indonesia’s citizens are Muslim, there are still many who believe in old lore concerning evil spirits and other supernatural occurrences. As a shaman, or witch doctor, Jago was well-known for his powers of channeling other spirits, and for practicing the healing arts.