The Straits Times, 31 December 1970, p. 10, by Hugh Mabbett: Yogyakarta court acquits 17-year-old egg seller Sum Kuning (Sumarijem), who reported rape by youths from powerful families and was charged with a false report. Police tortured a noodle seller, Trimo, and threatened her with electric torture and an accusation
Canberra Times, 2 Jan 1971, p. 8 (Hugh Mabbett): reports the Sum Kuning case in Yogyakarta, where a 17-year-old egg seller was raped, then tortured by police and charged with a false report. Police tried to tar her with an accusation that in 1965, aged about 12, she was a Gerwani member; the court exposed the fabricati
Canberra Times, 2 Jan 1971, p. 8 (Hugh Mabbett): reports the Sum Kuning case in Yogyakarta, where a 17-year-old egg seller was raped, then tortured by police and charged with a false report. Police tried to tar her with an accusation that in 1965, aged about 12, she was a Gerwani member; the court exposed the fabricati
Tribune (Sydney), 20 May 1975, p. 7, abridged from the British magazine TAPOL (Mar 1975): thousands of women remain among about 100,000 political prisoners. Describes Gerwani's work, its banning, the sexual slander ('sex-maniacs', mutilation claims) as fuelling the massacres, torture and rape of women tapols, Plantunga
Tribune (Sydney), 20 May 1975, p. 7, abridged from the British magazine TAPOL (Mar 1975): thousands of women remain among about 100,000 political prisoners. Describes Gerwani's work, its banning, the sexual slander ('sex-maniacs', mutilation claims) as fuelling the massacres, torture and rape of women tapols, Plantunga
TAPOL Bulletin no. 16, June 1976, issued before the IGGI meeting. Contents: smuggled letter on prison torture including sexual torture of women (some miscarried), Fraser congressional hearings with Benedict Anderson, Sudomo interview on categories A/B/C and Buru, analysis of Oei Tju Tat's trial, Papuan killings, Amnest
Kinesis (Vancouver feminist paper), June 1977, p.10, 'Women round the World': a section on Indonesian women. It says Gerwani, the largest women's organisation (over one million members), was banned for alleged complicity in the 1965 coup and blamed for atrocities; many members suffered torture and sexual abuse in inter
Leslie Dwyer's 2004 article on the gendered violence of 1965-66 in Bali, framed by Ibu Ari, whose husband and brother were taken by PNI paramilitaries and who was sexually 'inspected'; argues women's silence is a culturally specific semiotics, not absence of memory. Fieldwork-based gender analysis.
Komnas Perempuan's 2007 report on gender-based crimes against humanity in 1965: 122 testimonies, an account of Gerwani's history and the 1965 press campaign behind the Lubang Buaya slander, and catalogue of rape, sexual slavery, detention and Buru. Key official source on women's experience.
Pohlman (2015) on 'janda PKI': women widowed in 1965-66 were doubly stigmatised as widows and as 'PKI' women demonised by Gerwani propaganda; four testimonies show sexual violence and exploitation. Gendered stigma analysis.
Annie Pohlman's 2015 monograph, the first book-length study of gendered violence in 1965-66, based on about 150 women survivors: patterns of arrest, torture, rape, sexualised mutilation, strip searches for the 'Gerwani mark', sexual slavery and 'wife-taking'. Key scholarly source.
Web edition of the final report of the seven judges of the International People's Tribunal 1965 (The Hague, Nov 2015; report 20 July 2016): finds Indonesia responsible for crimes against humanity, including sexual violence and hate propaganda, and the US, UK and Australia complicit.
Final Report of the IPT 1965 judges (20 July 2016, The Hague/Jakarta): origins after The Act of Killing, Saskia Wieringa and Nursyahbani Katjasungkana's roles, and legal reasoning on killing, detention, torture, sexual violence and propaganda. Key text on international legal findings.
Pohlman (2016) argues the demonisation of Gerwani created an enduring 'pathological discourse' constraining women's sexual and political citizenship; perpetrators invoked the slander to justify violence, as in the cases of Ibu Susiani and others.
Pohlman (2017), lead investigator on sexual crimes for the IPT 1965, argues rape and sexualised torture in 1965-70 detention were crimes against humanity, summarising fifty-eight case files (72% female victims, 85% naming soldiers or military police). Legal framing of sexual torture.
Edited volume (Palgrave 2018; McGregor, Melvin, Pohlman) arguing the 1965 violence was genocidal, covering causes (Aceh army documents, Bali, Pohlman on women's testimonies of sexual violence in West Sumatra) and legacies. Key scholarship on 1965 violence.
Routledge volume (2019, ed. Wieringa, Melvin, Pohlman) gathering research behind the IPT 1965: coup, torture, Buru enslavement, sexual slavery and forced marriage, exile, mass graves, Western complicity and youth projects. Foreword by judge Zak Yacoob.
Edited volume (Routledge, 2020; McGregor, Dragojlovic, Loney) linking domestic, military, legal and political violence in Indonesia; chapters include theatre from 1965 survivor testimonies. Gerwani relevant via 1965 gendered violence.
Tempo English cover story 'Traumatic Burden of 1965' (4 Oct 2021, Dini Pramita) on Umi Sardjono's silence and guilt after release in 1978. Ita Fatia Nadia read her a Medan woman's testimony of gang rape and public parading, and showed Sudjinah's X-ray; Umi wept, saying it was her responsibility. It covers her life in t
Pohlman and colleagues' 2024 article presenting the IndoTorM dataset of 4,072 torture victims (1965 onward), with heat maps showing beatings and forced stripping constant over time and rape dominant for women and children. Quantitative context on New Order torture.
Kochi Kaoru's 2025 article using second-hand-market documents to show that wives and widows of leftist men, including former Gerwani members, married or became concubines of officers and soldiers, and the army banned the practice; also covers 'bersih diri' certificates and disenfranchisement.