Timeline
Items per year (1939–2026); click a bar to see that year.
Key events
First Indonesian Women's Congress 3 items
First national congress of Indonesian women's organisations; its opening date, 22 December, later became Hari Ibu (Mother's Day), a reference point in Gerwani's own histories.
WIDF founding congress 2 items
International Congress of Women in Paris founds the Women's International Democratic Federation, the left-wing international to which Gerwis and Gerwani later affiliated.
Asian Women's Conference, Beijing 13 items
WIDF-sponsored conference of Asian women in Peking, weeks after the founding of the PRC; Lillah Suripno attended from Indonesia and hailed the Chinese revolution as an example.
Marriage law campaign 26 items
Long-running Gerwis/Gerwani campaign for a democratic marriage law, against polygamy and forced marriage, including casework for women and support for draft bills in parliament.
Literacy and TK Melati kindergarten work 2 items
Gerwani ran literacy courses and built a network of Melati kindergartens (TK Melati), reporting over 1,400 kindergartens by 1964.
Founding of Gerwis 14 items
Gerakan Wanita Indonesia Sedar (Gerwis) is founded in Semarang through the fusion of six regional women's organisations; the date was later celebrated as Gerwani's anniversary.
Sukiman government's August raids 34 items
Mass anti-communist arrests ordered under Prime Minister Sukiman; Gerwis members were detained and the Gerwis central board protested. Gerwani later recalled the raids as formative repression.
Arrest of Gerwis chair S.K. Trimurti 9 items
Gerwis chair S.K. Trimurti is arrested on the Attorney General's order at the Jakarta immigration office while arranging a passport for a trip to China.
First Gerwis Congress 5 items
First national congress of Gerwis in Surabaya, reported by later Gerwani histories as marking a membership of about 6,000.
Protests against Government Regulation 19/1952 12 items
Women's organisations including Gerwis, Perwari and Persit oppose Government Regulation 19/1952 granting state pensions to several widows of one civil servant, seen as endorsing polygamy.
WIDF World Congress of Women, Copenhagen 43 items
WIDF's World Congress of Women in Copenhagen; a Gerwis delegation took part and Indonesian delegates urged support for a Korean ceasefire.
Second Gerwis Congress: renaming to Gerwani 53 items
Second Gerwis congress renames the organisation Gerakan Wanita Indonesia (Gerwani) and reorients it towards a mass membership; Sukarno received delegates and Dutch communist MP Rie Lips-Odinot attended.
Sukarno–Hartini marriage controversy 43 items
President Sukarno's marriage to Hartini as a second wife provokes protest by a deputation of women's organisations against polygamy; Gerwani's muted stance was later criticised.
Asian-African Conference, Bandung 9 items
Conference of 29 Asian and African states in Bandung; its 'Bandung spirit' framed Gerwani's Afro-Asian women's solidarity work and later women's conferences in Colombo and Cairo.
1955 parliamentary election 36 items
Indonesia's first national election; Gerwani mobilised thousands of election workers and five Gerwani members, including Umi Sardjono and Salawati Daud, entered parliament on the PKI list.
Constituent Assembly election 3 items
Election of the Konstituante; Gerwani counted six members in the Constituent Assembly.
WIDF Council meeting, Beijing 9 items
WIDF Council session in Beijing, covered in the Chinese press with attention to the growth of the Indonesian women's movement.
Konstituante convenes and is dissolved 4 items
The Constituent Assembly sits in Bandung until Sukarno's decree of 5 July 1959 dissolves it and restores the 1945 Constitution, opening Guided Democracy.
Third Gerwani Congress 12 items
Third national congress in Solo adopts a new constitution with branches replacing working units; Gerwani reported about 700,000 members.
Asian-African Women's Conference, Colombo 10 items
Asian-African women's conference in Colombo inspired by the Bandung spirit; the Indonesian preparatory committee was chaired by Hurustiati Subandrio.
Fourth WIDF Congress, Vienna 9 items
WIDF's Fourth World Congress of Women in Vienna; Gerwani's Mudigdio addressed it on Indonesian women, and two Indonesian women MPs spoke.
Launch of Api Kartini 3 items
Inaugural issue of Api Kartini, the Gerwani-linked women's magazine published by Jajasan Melati with Maasje Siwi as editor-in-chief.
WIDF Bureau meeting, Jakarta 9 items
First WIDF meeting held in Indonesia, at Hotel Duta Indonesia, hosted with Gerwani and welcomed by Prime Minister Djuanda.
Fiftieth International Women's Day 14 items
Gerwani and the WIDF mark the 50th anniversary of International Women's Day, proposed by Clara Zetkin in Copenhagen in 1910.
WIDF Council session, Warsaw 2 items
WIDF Council session in Warsaw, reported first-hand in Api Kartini by Maasje Siwi.
Afro-Asian Women's Conference, Cairo 12 items
First Afro-Asian Women's Conference; the Indonesian delegation included Iwanah Prijono and Francisca Fanggidaej, and resolutions addressed Algeria, French nuclear tests and women's rights.
National Seminar on Peasant Women 8 items
Gerwani's first national seminar on peasant women, with BTI participation and a speech by D.N. Aidit, turning the organisation towards poor and landless rural women.
Fourth Gerwani Congress 40 items
Fourth national congress adopts a new statute and programme, affirms WIDF affiliation and focuses on West Irian; Sukarno addressed it and foreign guests attended.
Trikora and West Irian volunteer mobilisation 23 items
Sukarno's Trikora command launches the campaign to take West Irian; Gerwani registered thousands of women volunteers from January 1962.
Fifth WIDF World Congress of Women, Moscow 38 items
WIDF World Congress of Women in Moscow, marked by Sino-Soviet disputes; Gerwani rejected the programme and attacked 'revisionism'.
Dwikora and Malaysia confrontation 34 items
Sukarno's Dwikora command mobilises volunteers for confrontation with Malaysia; Gerwani took part in the mobilisation, including peasant women.
Gerwani's fifteenth anniversary 8 items
Gerwani marks fifteen years, claiming millions of members and announcing a Fifth Congress for December 1965 that was never held.
30 September Movement 93 items
Overnight, the 30 September Movement abducts and kills six army generals and a lieutenant, with bodies taken to Lubang Buaya near Halim air base, where Pemuda Rakyat and Gerwani volunteers had trained.
Army press sexual slander campaign against Gerwani 218 items
Army newspapers Angkatan Bersendjata and Berita Yudha spread fabricated stories that Gerwani women mutilated the generals and danced naked at Lubang Buaya; autopsies showed no mutilation.
Regional bans of the PKI and its mass organisations 103 items
Regional military authorities (Pepelrada) suspend or dissolve the PKI, Gerwani and other affiliated organisations province by province.
Mass killings of 1965–66 157 items
Army-led killings of alleged communists in Central Java, East Java, Bali, North Sumatra and elsewhere; estimates run from hundreds of thousands to over a million. Gerwani members were killed, raped and detained.
Exhumation at Lubang Buaya and generals' funeral 50 items
The officers' bodies are exhumed from a well at Lubang Buaya and buried on Armed Forces Day; the scene became the core of the army's anti-Gerwani narrative.
Attacks on PKI and Gerwani premises in Jakarta 21 items
Crowds sack the PKI headquarters, the houses of Aidit and Njoto and the Gerwani building in Jakarta as the army drive against the PKI begins.
Kowani expels Gerwani 14 items
The Indonesian Women's Congress federation (Kowani), chaired by Hurustiati Subandrio, expels Gerwani for alleged involvement in the 30 September Movement.
Fact-Finding Commission on the killings 1 items
Presidential fact-finding commission reports some 78,000 killed, a figure widely regarded as a severe undercount.
First Mahmillub trials (Njono, Untung) 41 items
Special Military Tribunals (Mahmillub) try SOBSI leader Njono and Lt.-Col. Untung; army press used the hearings to amplify the Gerwani–Lubang Buaya story.
Supersemar and national ban of the PKI 8 items
Sukarno's order of 11 March transfers authority to Suharto, who on 12 March dissolves the PKI; its mass organisations, including Gerwani, are treated as banned.
MPRS Decree XXV/1966 1 items
The Provisional People's Consultative Assembly confirms the PKI ban and prohibits the spread of communism and Marxism-Leninism.
Subandrio trial and Lubang Buaya film 6 items
At former foreign minister Subandrio's Mahmillub trial the court screened film of Pemuda Rakyat and Gerwani volunteers training at Lubang Buaya.
First Hari Kesaktian Pancasila 9 items
First official commemoration of 'Pancasila Sanctity Day', institutionalising the army's version of 1 October 1965, including Gerwani's alleged role.
Arrest of Sulami and Sudjinah 7 items
Gerwani leaders Sulami and Sudjinah are arrested in Jakarta with other PKI figures after attempting to keep an underground network going.
MPRS withdraws Sukarno's mandate 0 items
The MPRS strips Sukarno of power and names Suharto acting president, completing the transition to the New Order.
Sudisman's Mahmillub trial 5 items
Trial of PKI Politburo member Sudisman, who was sentenced to death; Gerwani leaders including Sulami were listed as witnesses.
Arrest of Suharti Suwarto 2 items
Gerwani deputy chair Suharti Suwarto and her husband are reported arrested, after years in hiding.
Operasi Trisula, South Blitar 15 items
Army operation crushes the PKI underground base in South Blitar; captured women were paraded in army press as Gerwani 'tools of the PKI'.
Deportation of political prisoners to Buru Island 6 items
Thousands of male category-B political prisoners are shipped to forced-labour settlements on Buru; women prisoners were held separately, notably at Plantungan.
Plantungan women's detention camp 21 items
Former leprosarium near Kendal used as a camp for category-B women political prisoners, many of them Gerwani members, transferred from Bukit Duri and elsewhere.
Trial of four Gerwani women 38 items
Sulami, Sudjinah, Sri Ambar Rukmiati and Suharti Harsono are tried after years of pre-trial detention; prosecutors demanded life for Sulami and 20 years for the others, prompting international solidarity protests.
Mass releases of political prisoners 14 items
Under international pressure the New Order releases category-B prisoners in batches from December 1977 to December 1979, including women from Plantungan and Bukit Duri.
Release of the film Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI 10 items
State propaganda film depicting the official G30S story, including Gerwani at Lubang Buaya, screened annually on television until compulsory screening was dropped in 1998.
Fall of Suharto and Reformasi 3 items
Suharto resigns, opening the Reformasi era and calls to reassess the 1965 events, the killings and the Gerwani slander.
Wahid's proposal to revoke the 1966 PKI ban 2 items
President Abdurrahman Wahid proposes revoking MPRS Decree XXV/1966 and apologises for the killings; victims' groups such as YPKP 65 press Komnas HAM to investigate.
Komnas HAM report on 1965–66 1 items
The National Human Rights Commission concludes that gross human-rights violations occurred in 1965–66 and names Kopkamtib as a chief perpetrator.
Tempo special edition on 1965 33 items
Tempo magazine's special issue on perpetrators and detention sites of 1965 (Operasi Kalong, Trisula, Plantungan), appearing alongside The Act of Killing.
International People's Tribunal 1965 10 items
Civil-society tribunal in The Hague hears testimony on 1965–66 crimes, including sexual violence and the Gerwani propaganda; its judges' final report followed on 20 July 2016.