Indonesia's Sundel Bolong

Like many other ghostly-women on this list, Indonesia's Sundel Bolong is also said to wander the afterlife dressed all in white, however this white isn't related to the purity of bridal costumes, such as the one seen in Korea's Virgin Ghosts. The ghosts called Sundel Bolong are far from being considered virginal figures. The literal translation of their name means "Whore" from Sundel and "Hole" from Bolong.

The "hole" part of their name stems from the wound in the ghosts back. These ghosts are women who got pregnant without having been married, and then died during childbirth. In their graves the babies are said to burst out of their back, thus making the hole.  Some of the legends around Sundel Bolong's include beautiful women who were forced into prostitution, and as a result, later died. Some the Sundel Bolong is sexually assaulted outright, and as a result, she is impregnated. Sometimes, rather than die in childbirth, it's told as though she were stabbed several times in the back during the sexual assault. Many of the legends are focus on sexual violence done to a woman made vulnerable due to being a sex worker.  As for the Sundel Bolong's victims, she attacks men and children. Men, who depending on the telling find her horrifying from the start, or at first find her deeply attractive, are approached by the Sundel Bolong and propositioned. When they inevitably reject her, she's said to castrate them and leave them for dead. Children, specifically newborns, are said to be stolen by the Sundel Bolong to replace her missing child.

The Sundel Bolong is a popular figure in the media; there have been several films made about the figure throughout the years, and the legend is still popular today. As for its origins, modern folklorist believe that it was created to deter sex work among women, an occupation that was gaining in prevalence during the Dutch East Indies colonization.

Here we have a different take on a very common theme among female ghosts; often, the ghost remains because she was unable to fulfill her "womanly" role in some way or another. In this sense, the ghost didn't die a virgin, as the Korean ghosts, but instead she didn't fulfill her role in a societally approved way, and thus is denied the appropriate standing in society as a woman; she's not even allowed to give birth correctly, and instead the child comes out of her back, thus marking her as a "sundel belong" in her afterlife. While many of the legends paint the Sundel Bolong as a victim of sexual assault, she's still marked with the stigma associated with her occupation in the afterlife, and still sexualized in her hauntings of men.