Great success in Paris for Indonesians at WIDF exhibition events
De Waarheid report (24 Jul 1948) on a Perhimpunan Indonesia group of Indonesian workers and students performing dances and songs in Paris and Saint-Denis at WIDF invitation during its women's exhibition. An Indonesian woman greeted French women; the piece notes Kowani is a WIDF member. No Gerwis/Gerwani and no named In
Potentials of World Communism: Women's International Democratic Federation (OIR report, 1949)
OSS/State Department intelligence report (1 Aug 1949) on the Women's International Democratic Federation as a communist front: origins in the Soviet Anti-Fascist Committee of Women, 1945 Paris founding, leaders (Cotton, Popova, Ibarruri, Cai Chang), membership claims and Asia activities. Indonesia is mentioned only in
Soviet Woman, 28 Feb 1950, p. 47: A. N. Atanepesova's account of the Conference of Women of Asian Countries, Peking, late 1949 (198 delegates). Indonesia appears via delegate 'Lilia Suripno', who described partisan women fighting Dutch troops with babies on their backs. Reflects early WIDF-linked Asian solidarity; Gerw
Daily Worker, 17 April 1950: I saw Mao Tse-tung - delegate's report on the Conference of the Women of Asia, Peking
Page 5 of the Daily Worker (New York, 17 Apr 1950) carrying Betty Millard's first article on the Peking Conference of the Women of Asia, organised by the WIDF. She describes the train journey from Moscow with delegates including a Dutch woman active against arms shipments to Indonesia. OCR is garbled and the article co
It began in Paris: five years of the WIDF
De Waarheid retrospective (14 Dec 1950) on five years of the WIDF, founded in Paris in Dec 1945, describing its heroines and growth to 91 million members in 59 countries, the 1946 founding of the Dutch Women's Movement, the 1949 Asian women's conference in Peking and the Stockholm Appeal. Indonesian women are only name
WIDF Executive message 1952: Congress of the Peoples for Peace, Vienna
WIDF Executive Committee message (1952) calling women worldwide to prepare for the Congress of the Peoples for Peace, Vienna, 5 December 1952, and to demand an end to the Korean war, arms reduction, banning of atomic and bacteriological weapons, and a Pact of Peace. Signatories include Eugénie Cotton and others; Darmin
Soviet Woman, 31 Dec 1953: 'We Are Stronger Than Ever', WIDF and the Copenhagen Congress
Soviet Woman, 31 Dec 1953, pp. 49-52: WIDF declaration for peaceful settlement and Eugenie Cotton's statement, then Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier's 'We are stronger than ever' on follow-up to the Copenhagen World Congress of Women. One sentence notes the Indonesian women's union GERWIS would hold its congress in Dece
1956 extract from a speech by Sunardi, Indonesian delegate to the World Conference of Women Workers, plus a column of international women's news. She describes low wages, foreign monopolies, plantation women workers, absence of democratic marriage law and labour protection, the unilateral abrogation of the Round Table
Hopes for a better world: the early years of the WIDF 1945-1950 (de Haan, 2009)
Francisca de Haan's article (German, Feministische Studien 2009) on the WIDF's early years 1945-50: founding congress in Paris, leaders Cotton, Ibarruri and Popova, and the destruction of the US affiliate by HUAC. Background on the federation Gerwani later joined.
The WIDF: History, Main Agenda, and Contributions, 1945-1991 (de Haan, c.2012)
Overview essay by Francisca de Haan (Women and Social Movements International database, c. 2012) on WIDF's origins, agenda, UN role and Cold War marginalisation, 1945-1991. Gerwani is listed once as a large, influential WIDF member organisation (with footnotes to Wieringa and to McGregor on Indonesian women and WIDF);