How does Indonesia mark Mother's Day?
Hari Ibu
- Local date
- December 22, 2026
Indonesia's Hari Ibu is 22 December, established in 1959 by President Sukarno through Presidential Decree No. 316 as a national day that is not a public holiday. The date comes from the first Indonesian Women's Congress, opened on 22 December 1928 in Yogyakarta, attended by around thirty women's organisations and followed by the founding of a national women's federation. Its root is therefore not motherhood but the women's movement: it commemorates the beginning of women as political actors, which is not the same thing as the May holiday at all.The title of that presidential decree states its nature outright: on national days that are not public holidays. In other words, the same document that established it already made clear that it is not a day off — the weight of the commemoration and whether anyone gets leave are handled as two separate questions.
What is this topic?
Four places keep Mother's Day on the second Sunday of May; Indonesia keeps it on 22 December — and there it is not a day for thanking mothers but a political commemoration of the first Indonesian Women's Congress of 1928. This page compares how the day was established in each place: a congressional resolution, a statute that names it and explicitly gives no day off, a peak in the cut-flower trade, or the starting point of a women's movement.
Sources and dates
Dates follow local time zones, calendars, and official notices. Check the source when a date is estimated or locally variable.