Revealed: Surviving Malka Leifer

After allegations emerged in 2008 that Malka Leifer, headmistress of the girls' campus of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish school in Melbourne's inner south-east, had committed grievous crimes against three young students under her care—sisters Dassi Erlich, Nicole Meyer, and Elly Sapper—Leifer fled overseas under the cloak of darkness with the school's assistance before police investigations could get underway. What followed was an extradition battle lasting the better part of a decade and a broader quest for justice that exposed international intrigue, legal loopholes, political corruption, and a deeper culture of silence around sexual abuse.