Gerwani Central Sumatra demands death penalty
Short item, Indische Courant voor Nederland, 5 Jul 1956, p. 2: the Gerwani Central Sumatra branch writes to the government demanding the death penalty for Attamimi, tried for a sexual assault that killed a woman from Pasuruan, and urges other women's groups to do the same.
Gerwani Central Sumatra demands death penalty (full page)
Whole newspaper page, Indische Courant voor Nederland, c. 3-5 Jul 1956. Relevant items: Gerwani Central Sumatra demands the death penalty for Attamimi, accused of a fatal sexual assault; and the Kongres Wanita Indonesia's contacts with India, Burma and others toward an Asian-African women's congress.
Domestic news roundup: Buleleng Gerwani protests bail in rape-murder case
Domestic news roundup in De Nieuwsgier (11 Aug 1956). One item: the Buleleng branch of Gerwani protested to the government against the release on bail (Rp 400,000) of S. Atamimi, suspected of rape and murder, demanding re-arrest and heavy punishment. Other items concern military operations and Fatmawati Sukarno.
Rape case may fully restore rule of law: the Sum Kuning case (Hugh Mabbett, Straits Times, 1970)
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
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.
Janda PKI: stigma and sexual violence against communist widows (Pohlman, 2015)
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.
Women, Sexual Violence and the Indonesian Killings of 1965-1966 (Pohlman, 2015)
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.
Stigma of women victims of sexual violence and erasure of existence (Lustanto, 2015)
Rendi Lustanto's 27 Sep 2015 Jurnal Perempuan essay on the stigma of women pregnant outside marriage and victims of sexual violence; Gerwani enters only briefly. Opinion piece with little Gerwani content.
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.
Bernas, 19 July 2017: reader's letter 'Rome Statute still not ratified'
Bernas, 19 July 2017, p. 4: Jurnal Perempuan letter on the unratified Rome Statute listing unresolved cases from 1965–66 to 1998 and naming Gerwani women as targets of sexual violence.
Marriages between political prisoners' wives and army officers (Kochi Kaoru, 2025)
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.