Senior Journalist / Associate Editor
Rafly Gilang Pratama is an Indonesian journalist covering migration and labour. His reporting focuses on the practical realities people face when they move abroad, from recruitment fees and working conditions to citizenship and life after migration. Got a tip? Email raflygilang@migrantimes.com.
In several Japan-bound LPK dormitories in Indonesia, senior trainees can become mentors and, at the same time, informal enforcers. They pass a quasi-feudal hierarchy from one cohort to the next.
South Korea’s Employment Permit System generally requires new applicants to be between 18 and 39. Former E-9 workers seeking another Korean job through Special EPS-TOPIK face the same ceiling, even after they have already worked in the country.
Can love cross borders? Absolutely (shout out to dating apps and this thing called the internet). Making a life together? That’s another matter. Sometimes, a government gets a say, too.
88rising scouted Indonesian performers for a girl group whose plans already included Los Angeles. Before releasing music together, they spent a year in Jakarta finding out what kind of group they would be.
Indonesians are still moving between sectors and into new kinds of work. But too often, those moves are not leading to the pay and security needed to stay middle class.
For too many Indonesians, building a serious life still means orbiting Jakarta.
A 1948 town plan, Jakarta’s first MRT line and the reuse of old public property returned crowds to Blok M. The same recovery is raising the cost of making money there.
Civil society groups, transport workers, university students, and regional advocacy coalitions have assembled outside the national parliament in Jakarta, prompting widespread security deployment and traffic diversions.
Ana Maria van Valen, Casmat van Bloppoel and Indra Jaya Laksana received substantially similar citizenship findings after decades of being Dutch citizens, while preparing to use their cases to help other Indonesian-born adoption survivors.
Agencies are reviewing airport procedures after a Malaysian pilot’s baggage passed screening at KLIA before Indonesian authorities said they found about 25 kilograms of ecstasy.
Early exposure to overseas work or education can affect how possible migration appears later in life.
Entourage promised a “community” for Bali’s digital nomads. Allegations that the club excluded local Indonesians turned it into a test case for immigration enforcement on the Island of the Gods.
Indonesian-born “adoptees” sent to the Netherlands met officials in Jakarta to seek the restoration of citizenship they lost as children.
Indonesia’s coordinating law minister has urged faster processing for three Dutch citizens seeking to recover Indonesian nationality lost after childhood adoption.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup, football’s biggest stage, maps how migration history, citizenship law, and eligibility rules shape national-team lineups, including across the AFC’s nine participating countries.
Southeast Asia may be preparing thousands of workers for AI roles before many local employers have the systems, budgets, and infrastructure teams to employ them in those jobs.
10,000 KMs away from home, a Romanian-born Italy-raised entrepreneur moved to tropical Indonesia. There, he built Balkan Shawarma, a Balkan-inspired franchise with sprinkles of Eastern European comfort food and the search for a taste of home.
Driven to undo forced identity erasure, Indonesian-born "adoptees" trafficked to the Netherlands are returning decades later to reclaim the heritage they never chose to lose—Indonesians who aren’t Indonesian, yet, still fighting to change that.
LPDP, or Indonesia’s Endowment Fund for Education, sends some of the country’s brightest minds overseas each year. But Indonesia’s bureaucracy has hindered what could have been a national program with strong return on investment.
Passport strength shapes global mobility, with wealth, politics, and migration risk determining how freely Southeast Asians can travel.
For decades, the trauma of the violent years of Bersiap haunts generations of Indo people. Their grandchildren are now scattered all over the world.
On 28 February 2026, the United States and Israel launched coordinated airstrikes on multiple Iranian military and strategic sites. Iran retaliated with hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones against Israel, U.S. bases, and Gulf states.
A passport may look like a right, but across Southeast Asia’s capitals, it can cost anywhere from a few days’ wages to nearly a month’s pay.
For decades, Indonesian football struggled to make its mark in Asia and worldwide. But in the last five years, over 20 new heritage players came home and wore the badge, though it comes at a price.
From Tokyo to Seoul to Berlin, governments have signed agreements with Indonesia to recruit workers through government-to-government (G-to-G) migration programs. But the costs migrants face vary sharply depending on where they are going.
Between English tests, apostilles, and trips to Jakarta, applying for scholarships abroad can cost millions of rupiah - money that systematically filters out students from outside Java & lower economies before any committee reads their application.
Indonesian workers abandon their previous university degrees and qualifications to work in Japan under the soon-to-be scrapped Technical Intern Training Program (TITP). Why?
The reform of the TITP for migrant workers, which has been controversial in Japan for a long time, is progressing. But to what?
The first of nine Indonesian migrant workers killed in a Hong Kong apartment fire has been repatriated, with the rest to follow.
Statistics on migrant crimes often get misinterpreted, not because they’re inaccurate, but because the way they're collected can't show the full picture.
From Indonesia to Japan, a system manages how Technical Intern Trainees and Specified Skilled Workers are recruited, trained, and placed—trying to meet company needs while looking after the trainees’ welfare.
With their children growing up without papers in this legal no-man's-land, Indonesian communities in Malaysia are protecting their right to learn and survive.
Indonesia migrant workers sent home $16 billion in 2024, accounting for 1.1% of the country’s GDP. But the system selling that success story is failing the workers who made it possible. Experts explain why.
Before setting foot in Japan, Indonesian trainees must face a four-month live bootcamp built on discipline, mental endurance, and strict cultural training.
At the CIFP forum in Jakarta, ministers, diplomats, and scholars revealed deep anxieties about global fragmentation and a quiet shift in how Southeast Asia sees its future.
The right-wing Japan First ideology shouldn’t deter companies from hiring migrant workers, said an industry insider.
For Indonesian migrants abroad, food isn’t just food. It’s the last thing that reminds them at home, one that doesn't require any paper, visa, or travel insurance.
Japan’s shrinking labour pipelines in China, Vietnam and Myanmar have pushed it toward Indonesia as its primary source of migrant workers, but this corridor may not stay open forever. This is the first instalment of the Skill Corridors series.
A lot of young Asians would go to Europe every year to pursue higher education. Most of them dream of finding a stable life there. But the reality is not as easy as it sounds.
Pregnancies amongst migrant workers are rising in Japan, leading to many of them choosing to return home. Their departure reveals deeper economic pressures and structural weaknesses in Japan’s dependence on migrant labour.
Senator Raffy Tulfo has proposed a new Migrant Workers Relations Commission to fast-track the resolution of labour disputes involving OFW.
The EU’s Ship to Shore Rights South-East Asia programme runs from January 2025 to December 2028.
The 2025 Job Festival in Jakarta is held on 13-14 November at the Kartika Expo Center, South Jakarta.
Remittances fuel Southeast Asia’s economies, keeping families afloat, but growing dependence on money earned abroad exposes deeper economic fragility.
