De Waarheid, 29 Apr 1953, p. 6: short Jakarta dispatch (20 April) that Gerwis handed to Prime Minister Wilopo the resolutions from its recent conference: price controls, independent trade policy, firm action against security threats, and condemnation of attempts to drive peasants off their land in North Sumatra.
De Waarheid, 6 May 1953, p. 5: dispatch citing two Gerwis women, Su... and Warinah, on the growth of Gerwis in East Java: districts up from 19 (early 1952) to 37, 120 branches plus 50 forming, 7,016 members, mainly women workers, peasants and self-employed. Illiteracy is the main obstacle, countered by courses attended
Algemeen Indisch Dagblad (1953-06-16, p. 2): Gerwis issues a statement on cabinet formation urging a government that withdraws measures harming women and the people, with a programme of protection for working and pregnant women, anti-unemployment measures, more education budget, price control, farm tools, ending region
Java-Bode, 16 June 1953, p. 1: Gerwis statement on the formation of a new cabinet. It demands withdrawal of measures harming women and the people, with a programme of protection for working and pregnant women, fighting unemployment, higher education budget, price control, repeal of regional measures violating democrati
Het Nieuwsblad voor Sumatra (17 Jun 1953, p.2): Gerwis issues a statement on the formation of a new cabinet, calling for one that repeals measures harming women and people. Its programme demands protection of working women (especially pregnant), curbing unemployment, a bigger education and culture budget, price control
De Vrije Pers local-news column (16 Jan 1954, Malang). Relevant item: Gerwis Malang town and regency branches elected new boards, with Mrs. Sudiro as town chairwoman and Mrs. Ismail as regency chairwoman, listing officers for organisation, labour and agriculture, social affairs, and information and education, and their
De Waarheid, 10 Mar 1954, p. 5: excerpts from an article by Umi (Sardjono), Gerwis board member, in Harian Rakjat preparing Gerwis's second congress. She lists invitations to women's groups in the USSR, China, Netherlands, India and WIDF, and stresses plantation and factory women, mass dismissals driving women into pro
De Waarheid, 12 May 1954, p. 5: Rie Lips's account of her Java trip: plantation workers' wages (about 3 rupiah per day), child labour on tea and rubber estates, and volunteer village schools. Quotes the Gerwani congress appeal that those who can read should teach others; Soviet delegate Alexandra Kolopowa speaks; photo
De Vrije Pers item (1 Jun 1954) on a Gerwani conference in Surabaya: renewing programme and board, aiming to raise membership two- to fourfold with sub-branches in all wards, endorsing the Jakarta congress decisions (marriage law, democratic rights, H-bomb), demanding dissolution of the city council, backing peasants i
De Locomotief, 29 July 1954: the Salatiga branch of Gerwani, with Central Java provincial delegates and BTI, SOBSI and women's organisation representatives, discusses implementing the latest congress decisions. Sub-branches will be set up in every subdistrict capital. Gerwani fields no candidates in the elections but i
De Waarheid, 29 Sep 1954, p. 5: Dutch printing of an account from Soviet Woman by Soviet delegates Alexandra Cholopowa and Jekaterina Sjeweljowa on their three-week visit to Indonesia at Gerwani's invitation. They describe the word 'damai' (peace), women workers' and plantation conditions in East Java and Bandung, the
Harian Rakjat, 26 Jan 1955, p. 3: women's-page feature 'Maisuri, symbol of resistance to forced marriage', signed Ny. Suwarti (DPP Gerwani). Maisuri refused a marriage imposed by her family to an older man (Kyai Ahmad) who already had wives; the piece uses the case to argue against forced marriage and for a marriage la
Het Nieuwsblad voor Sumatra (11 Feb 1955, p.4): in a customary-court retrial in Tanjungraja, village girl Maisuri, forced by her father to marry a 45-year-old hadji, is defended by lawyer Mr Muwalladi provided by the women's association Gerwani. She had married Kojum, her own choice, and was sentenced with him and her
Java-Bode, 31 May 1955, p. 2: report on the PKI's 35th anniversary rally on Merdeka Square. D.N. Aidit urged the Dutch to leave and stressed Muslim-Nationalist-Communist unity; Umi Sardjono, Gerwani general chair, spoke sharply against surviving feudalism and large landownership; judge Astrawinata explained his PKI can
Indische Courant voor Nederland, 8 Jun 1955, p. 2: report on the PKI's 35th-anniversary rally at Merdeka Square, Jakarta. Umi Sardjono, general chairwoman of Gerwani, attacks feudalism and large landownership; Aidit speaks on Muslim-nationalist-communist unity and Dutch profits, with slogans against Dutch and landlords
De Waarheid, 10 Aug 1955, p. 5: illustrated story marking ten years of the Republic about Maisuri, a 17-year-old from Talang-Dukun, South Sumatra, sold by her parents to a landlord as fourth wife, who fled and married her chosen partner, was jailed for 'adultery' and freed after her mother turned to a Gerwani officer a
Algemeen Indisch Dagblad reportage (1955-09-30, p. 2) from the village of Tjoblong-Sekeloa, Bandung, on the 29 September 1955 election: 1,147 voters at a bamboo polling place. A child-minding and first-aid post near the booths is run by a committee of eleven women: one from Muslimat, two from Wanita Demokrat and eight
De Waarheid, 23 Mar 1956, p. 2: Moscow dispatch that the PKI has one million members, per Aidit in an interview with the Soviet magazine Ogonyok; SOBSI has 2.6 million, the peasant union BTI 2.5 million, Pemuda Rakjat 700,000 and Gerwani about 500,000. Useful as a contemporary membership figure for Gerwani.
Indian Daily Mail, 27 May 1956 (lead only). A delegation of Indonesian working women arrived in Moscow at the invitation of the Soviet trade-union council (VTsSPS), led by Setiati Surasto, secretary for economic affairs of an Indonesian agricultural (peasant) organisation. Solidarity with the socialist bloc.
Harian Rakjat, 16 Jan 1957, p. 3: women's page ('Wanita') with a short story by Sulami (Gerwani) about 'Yu Siyem', a village market woman and Gerwani branch activist who recruits neighbours, tours distant villages and wins her husband's support, showing membership expansion and the Anak-Cabang structure. Also Soviet sc
Suara Tani (BTI organ), special 10th-anniversary issue, January 1959, OCR noisy. Contains greetings from ministers, army chief Nasution and Gerwani; BTI New Year message; agrarian seminar results; BTI membership table (3.39 million); exposés of landlord exploitation in Java. On p. 5 Gerwani's national leadership (claim
Volume II of the documents of the PKI Sixth National Congress (Jakarta, 7-14 September 1959; Bintang Merah special, Yayasan Pembaruan, 1960): delegates' speeches. It includes the speech of Suharti, deputy chair of the Gerwani national leadership (pp. 595-603), on women as the most oppressed, peasant women, women cadres
Volume II of the documents of the PKI Sixth National Congress (Jakarta, 7-14 September 1959; Bintang Merah special, Yayasan Pembaruan, 1960): delegates' speeches. It includes the speech of Suharti, deputy chair of the Gerwani national leadership (pp. 595-603), on women as the most oppressed, peasant women, women cadres
Suara Tani (BTI organ), June 1960 (vol. XI no. 6), OCR noisy. Issue marks PKI's 40th anniversary, the DPR-GR, the sharecropping law and the 5-Principles rice method. P. 3 (cont. p. 6) gives short biographies of BTI peasant representatives in the DPR-GR, including Ny. Kartinah Kurdi (Taman Siswa teacher, Yogyakarta, act
Book by PKI chairman D.N. Aidit (Demos, 1963) collecting his writings on the Indonesian revolution. Beyond the opening chapters, a passage on the Madiun affair (p. 128) records that Mrs Mudigdio and A.M. Tambunan put parliamentary questions on 9 December 1950 about the 1948 killing of Amir Sjarifuddin and ten comrades.
De Waarheid text (7 May 1988, p.6), apparently a speech/interview by an unnamed Indonesian woman, on the Indonesian women's movement. She says Gerwani, with about 1.5 million members after 1949, gave the movement its mass character defending peasant and working women, while Perwari led on polygamy; after 1965 Gerwani w
Sulami's reflective essay (written 1992, posted 9 Nov 2006) on why revolutionary women founded Gerwis on 4 June 1950, its rejection of 'man-hating feminism', its actions such as Tanjung Morawa and International Women's Day. First-person account by a Gerwani secretary-general.
Jurnal Perempuan profile (10 Oct 2014) of Arjo Sutiyem, a Boyolali farmer who joined Gerwis in the early 1950s, founded the Musuk branch (2 Feb 1952), led Boyolali's organisation and ran women's literacy schools, then was handed to the army in 1965. Grassroots Gerwis/Gerwani testimony.
Jurnal Perempuan feature (Jan 2016) on a Jejer Wadon visit to Suti (Arjo Sutiyem), 96, in Musuk, Boyolali: her reasons for joining the women's movement, early life, chairing Gerwis Boyolali with 4,000 members from 1952. Adds biographical detail to the 2014 profile.
Rappler first-person account (2 Feb 2016) of Suti (Arjo Sutiyem), 96: born 1920 in Musuk, third wife in an arranged marriage, joined Gerwis in 1951, chaired Musuk and Boyolali Gerwani, then persecuted in 1965. Fullest of three texts on her.