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Fourteen-year-olds “Iwan” and “Lanang” were shocked to hear that the man who they lived with for a year, who fed and bathed them, is an alleged child rapist and murderer.

“When we lived with Babe we felt protected … the first time we found out that [he] was molesting and killing kids we could not believe it,” Iwan said.

Life with the man they called Babe, which means father in Betawi, had been much better than on the streets of Jakarta, they told the Jakarta Globe in an exclusive interview at the Children’s Social Protection Home (RPSA) in Bambu Apus in East Jakarta.

The 49-year-old Bayquni (Babe) is thought to have strangled, then sodomized, at least 10 children. The bodies of four were also mutilated and decapitated. They were children that he took into his home, and who trusted him for their protection.

Police arrested Bayquni earlier this month after discovering the body parts of 9-year-old Ardiansyah in locations around Jakarta. Police said Bayquni murdered Ardiansyah when he refused to have sex with him.

At least 15 other children who used to live with Bayquni were still vulnerable to abuse, and risked going back to the streets if not properly cared for, RPSA chairman Cup Santo said.

Iwan and Lanang stayed in police detention rooms, without psychologists or social workers to monitor them, for the week following Bayquni’s arrest. This prompted Cup Santo and his colleagues to press for the youths to be moved to a home for vulnerable children, where they remain.

There, they had been undergoing intensive psychological assessments and a rehabilitation program to “show them what normality is,” and reintroduce them to family life, Cup Santo said. “It is necessary to give them a nurturing environment and keep them busy so their minds do not drift back to their painful memories.

“It is a difficult time for them. They are at risk of becoming depressed and anti-social if they are not helped.”

The boys are living with young mothers and other children, who they could be seen playing with in the quiet neighborhood where the home is located.

“We don’t try to educate them like you would in school; it’s about showing them normal life and getting them ready to go back to their families,” Cup Santo said.

For the former wards of Bayquni, it had been a long time since the boys had experienced this sort of normality.

Iwan took to the streets when he was 12 because he found life in his home village back in Kalimantan “boring.” He left his family and traveled to the capital with a friend, but they soon became separated and he was on his own.

He slept in shop-fronts and made what money he could by busking on Metro Mini buses – he regularly had to pay much of this to preman, or street thugs, for “street tax,” he said.

He and many of his companions became addicted to sniffing glue during this time, and some of his young friends died from drug abuse, he said.

When Bayquni, a street vendor, said the child could stay in his house, it was an offer he felt he could not refuse.

“It was just very nice to have a place to go home to … and he didn’t allow us to do glue anymore,” Iwan said.

There were usually between five and seven boys living in the modest house in Pulogadung.

They would go busking and give some of the money they made to Bayquni each week, though Iwan and Lanang were also able to save a total of about Rp. 200,000, which is still sitting in a piggy bank in Babe’s house.

Iwan knew nothing about what is said to have been done to other boys until it was in the national headlines.

“But it is a relief for me that he has been arrested,” he said.

Babe was “a good man,” but had a mean streak, and he used to hit the boys when they misbehaved or were late, he said.

“We used to fear Babe when he would slap us — we didn’t know what he would do next.”

Though the two boys said nothing bad about Babe during the interview, Cup Santo said that according to their testimonies, Babe used to kiss them on their lips and bathe them. They would be undergoing examinations to see whether they had also been raped. “We have to prepare the children mentally so that [the examination] will not be a traumatic experience, but it is necessary,” he said.

The boys will stay under the care of the RPSA for the next two to four months, and staff will work with their parents to get them to commit to keeping the boys off the street.

Other boys who had lived with Babe are being cared for at children’s homes around Jakarta.

Iwan and Lanang’s case manager, Hasrifah, said some may go back to the street because they were highly mobile, and their parents and community may not have the life-skills to keep them at home.

Iwan and Lanang said they were looking forward to going back to their families, and hoped to be back at school soon.