Indonesian Women: The Banned Women's Organisation (Tharunka, 30 Jul 1975)

Tharunka (1975-07-30) - Indonesian Women Source: Trove, National Library of Australia - https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article230399867 Date retrieved: 2026-10-17 OCR text (uncorrected) follows. 30 Jul 1975 - INDONESIAN WOMEN Tharunka (Kensington, NSW: 1953 - 2010), Wednesday 30 July 1975, page 8 INDONESIAN WOMENTHE BANNED WOMEN'S ORGANISATION From the early days of the Indonesian Republic, a number of women's organisations came into existence, each oriented more or less towards the various political trends within society. Among these was the Gerakan Wanita Indonesia (GERWANI), the Indonesian Women's Movement which represented the leftwing of the women's movement and included a far greater number of working and peasant women among its members than any other women's organisations. The GERWANI was not affiliated to the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and did not confine its membership to communist women; it described itself as 'an organisation of communist and non-communist women'. By the time of the October 1965 events, the GERWANI was the largest women's organisation in the country with a membership of several thousand. It organised women on such widely varying issues as fighting against polygamy and forced marriages, setting up women's clinics and creches, running infants' schools and educational courses, fighting for economic demands such as resisting rising prices, and arranging social. gatherings for women. After the coup attempts had been crushed on 1st October, 1965, the PKI and numerous other organisations associated with the leftwing movement were immediately banned and held responsible for the events that had occurred. The GERWANI was included among the organisations banned and its members became liable to immediate arrest or, for those employed, to immediate dismissal from their jobs. Women were also playing an active part in the trade union and peasant movements, and here too as members of the leftwing trade union federation, SOBSI, and the leftwing peasants organisation, BTI, both banned in October 1965, they became liable to immediate arrest. GERWANI - A SPECIAL TARGET After the military took over, an unbridled attack on allleftwing organisations was launched; and the leftwing, deprived immediately of all its organs of press and channels of communications, was unable to reply. The GERWANI took the brunt of the attack in a vicious campaign that was deliberately aimed at arousing passions by depicting it as an organisation of sex-maniacs. The organisation was said to have been responsible for recruiting women and girls to go to the Lubang Buayas Training Camp which became the headquarters of the people responsible for the 1st October coup attempt. Sensational reports appeared in the press about "Gerwani prostitutes", "obscene sex-dancing and ritual", and "girls mutilating the sex organsot the murdered generals". There is no doubt that these unchallenged reports helped to incite the ffenzy which led to the massacres that swept many parts of the country in the latter months of 1965. WOMEN POLITICAL PRISONERS There is no way of accurately estimating the number of women being held as political prisoners. There are some women's prisons and camps where numbers are known approximately, but there is no way of knowing how many women are being detained in the scores of lesser-known prisons, the interrogation camps andmilitary units dotted throughout the country. Plantungan Women's Detention Camp in Central Java has a total of 386 women prisoners. This camp accommodates long-term, category B women, the category officially described as those who cannot be tried for lack of evidence but who will not be released because they are considered "a threat to national security". They work on the land for their sustenance in a very inaccessible region. Only à very small proportion are still in contact with their families and receive occasional food parcels. Family visits are extremely difficult and a great rarity because the camp is remote and much time and money is neededto secure a permit. Most of the women have lost all contact with their children and husbands, and live in an atmosphere of constant anxiety about what may be happening. The two other known women's prisons are Bukit Duri Prison in Jakarta and Bulu Prison in Semarang. The former is believed to hold about 75 women in the special wing for political prisoners. There are probably several dozen women being held at Bulu Prison. A fairly large number of women are known to have been arrested in West Kalimantan on charges of helping the guerrillas operating in the province. With an estimated 500 women political prisoners in the i o d a cf f s dStt t f f p v nAWsmall number of known institutions, it is reasonable to estimate that there are at least five-hundred more being held in other places. There are therefore at least one-thousand women being held as political prisoners in Indonesia. Torture is widely and systematically practised against political prisoners in Indonesia. Women are also subjected to these brutalities with the added ingredient of unbridled and often violent sexual assault. Inmany cases, women are forced to strip naked during interrogation as a" method of embarrassment and demoralisation. The standard forms of torture are practiced such as electric shock, beatings, cigarette burns and being left dangling by the wrists for many hours at a stretch. To all this is added, in the case of women, insertion of implements into the vagina and vicious pummelling of breasts, even against women who are known to be still suckling babies. WOMEN ON TRIAL The number of women who have been brought to trial since the first arrests took place nearly ten years ago is extremely small. The only two trials about which anything is known are those of Munadi Widodo and Suwardkrfngsih who was a member of the PKI Central Committee and was put on trial in 1967 and charged with having gone to South Sumatra on PKI instructions in September 1965 to organise a response to the coup attempt in Jakarta and with having organised and led underground political resistance in the province after the coup had failed. She was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. Her trial was fairly widely reported in the Indonesian press. Virtually nothing is known about Mrs. Munadi's trial, except that she was described as a local GERWANI leader 'directly in the 1965 events'. Although a large number of members of the Central Council GERWANI have been in etention since 1965 or soon ftef, there was no news of a entral GERWANI trial until a ew months ago. So despite the renzied sensations that urrounded the GERWANI uring the early days of uharto's New Order, it has aken more than nine years for he military apparatus to decide hat they had enough grounds or bringing a central GERWANI igure before court. Several women political risoners have appeared in arious trials as witnesses. Most otable in this respect is Sri mbar, a leading member of the omen's Department of SOBSI,the now-banned trade union federation. She was called as witness at the trial in 1965 of Suidsman, member of the politbureau of the PKI. When she appeared, she informed the presiding judge that her hearing had been impaired as a result of beatings during interrogations, that she had sustained several injuries as a result of assaults, also during interrogations (she pulled up her batik wrap to reveal scars on her thigh and buttock), that she did not knowthe accused, had been compelled to sign a document expressing willingness to appear as a witness and in fact did not wish to do so. The judge had no alternative but to dismiss her as a witness. Sri is still under detention. PROBLEMS OF DETAINEES' FAMILIES The wives and children of the tens of thousands of the political prisoners, many of whom have been under detention for almost ten years, are in many cases living in. conditions of destitution. Social services are non-existent in Indonesia and there are no benefits available to families deprived of the breadwinner. The families suffer too because of the fears that have been instilled in all sections of society, strongly discouraging anyone, even close relatives, from doing anything to help the dependents of political prisoners. Many things such as obtaining employment, enrolling at a school and moving into a new district can only be done if a person has a 'certificate of non-involvement-in the October 1965 events'. Generally speaking, the wives of detainees are not entitled to such certificates, although in some places they succeed in getting one by concealing their identity or bribing a local official. Many of the political prisoners' wives found themselves completely unprepared for taking on the responsibility of earning enough to keep their children and feed a husband in prison and, with society forced into such a hostile attitude, they have not succeeded in establishing for themselves a stable income. The problem of ensuring their children a proper education has greatly added to their worries. No education is free, even at primary school level because of levies imposed for entrance, monthly school maintenance fees and contributions to teachers. Many families, in an effort to ensure their survival against harassment by military or other officials, took the step of moving into a completely newdistrict where they could build a new life for themselves. But there are many disadvantages to such a choice. It means that wives must opt not to visit their husbands in prison or supply them with food; it also means that if their real identity were discovered, they could be arrested for having attempted to "flee from justice". Another aggravating factor to be borne by political prisoners' wives is that in Indonesia there are few single women, and divorced women and widows usually remarry because most communities have little tolerance for the 'unattached' women. Political prisoners' wives are therefore often frowned upon by their neighbours, pestered by men and mistrusted by jealous women. Such attitudes have compelled many wives to move to other districts or to ask their husbands for a divorce in order to seek the security of another marriage. The pressure of divorce is understandably high when women live in such uncertainty about their husbands' prospects of release.,