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.
