The first thing Malaysian police usually say after a raid is that the Indonesian prostitutes “admitted” it. Admitted they came on short trips, by ferryboat, admitted they knew what kind of work they were doing, admitted they were not trafficked in chains or locked rooms. Behind that dry word—admitted—sits a quieter, more complicated story that keeps repeating itself across the narrow stretch of sea between Indonesia and Malaysia: women who cross the border temporarily, work as sex workers by choice, then return home with cash, gifts, and carefully edited explanations.
Over the past few years, Malaysian media and court records have repeatedly documented Indonesian women travelling in and out of the country for prostitution, often staying two or three weeks at a time. In one widely reported case, several young women detained in Kuala Lumpur told officers they made the trip almost every month, entering on valid passports and tourist visas, then working independently in rented rooms or through informal contacts. “I come, work, then go home,” one woman reportedly said, explaining that the money she earned in a fortnight was more than she could make in several months back home.
Most of these women describe themselves as sukarela (voluntary worker), not victims. Financial pressure is the reason most often given: school fees for children, medical bills for parents, paying off debts, or saving to start a small usaha (micro-business). A woman interviewed by Malaysian media said bluntly, “I’m not proud, but I need money. There is no other job that pays this fast.” Another told reporters she had worked in factories and cafés before, but the pay barely covered daily expenses. In Malaysia, a few clients a day could change that equation entirely.
The channels that bring them there are rarely formal and almost never written down. Friends introduce friends. A cousin who “knows someone” in Kuala Lumpur passes along a WhatsApp number. Telegram groups circulate coded messages about apartments, “massage” work, or temporary room shares. Some women travel completely independently, arranging accommodation through short-term rentals and finding clients via social media. Others rely on loosely organized middlemen—often women themselves—who take a cut in exchange for introductions, protection, or access to clients. Unlike classic trafficking cases, passports are usually kept by the women, and movement in and out of Malaysia is relatively free, even if always legally precarious.
Life in Malaysia is described as both intense and strangely ordinary. Days are structured around waiting, messaging, and seeing clients, often in the same few neighbourhoods known for nightlife or discreet commercial sex. Many women live quietly, avoiding attention, shopping late, eating alone, and rarely mixing with Malaysians outside work. “We don’t go out much,” one Indonesian woman told researchers studying migrant sex workers in the Klang Valley. “Work, rest, send money, repeat.” The risk of police raids is constant, shaping where they work and how visible they allow themselves to be. Arrest means detention, fines, and deportation—and often public shame.
Yet the pull remains strong enough that many return again and again. The math is persuasive. Even after sharing earnings with intermediaries or paying higher living costs, a short stay can fund months of life back home. Remittances are sent quietly through bank transfers or carried back in cash. New phones, gold jewellery, and branded bags become tangible proof that the trip was “worth it.”
Back in Indonesia, explanations are carefully managed. Few women tell the truth outright. Families are told they worked as pelayan (waitresses), therapists in a spa, or penjaga toko (shop assistants). Some say they were taking care of an aunt or helping a friend’s business. “My mother thinks I work in a salon,” one woman said in an interview. “She doesn’t ask too many questions because I send money.” Silence becomes a form of protection, both for the woman and for the family’s reputation.
Religion and social norms weigh heavily in these decisions. Many women speak of rasa malu (shame) and dosa (sin), even as they defend their choices as practical and temporary. The idea of working only a short time—cukup sebentar (just briefly)—helps frame sex work as a sacrifice rather than an identity. This sense of temporariness is key. Few imagine themselves doing this long-term; most speak of an exit plan, even if it keeps being postponed.
Authorities in both countries struggle with how to classify these women. Malaysian enforcement tends to flatten all cases into immigration offences or illegal prostitution, while Indonesian officials oscillate between seeing them as victims and as rule-breakers who embarrass the nation abroad. Lost in that binary is the women’s own framing: not coerced, not free in any meaningful legal sense, but navigating a narrow corridor of choice shaped by inequality, borders, and demand.
What emerges from their testimonies is not a story of glamour or pure victimhood, but one of calculated risk. Temporary migration for sex work is, for these women, a strategy—fragile, stigmatized, and always one police raid away from collapse. They cross, they work, they return, carrying money, secrets, and the hope that the next trip will be the last.
I have lost count of how many times I’ve heard this story in different accents, different cafés, different WhatsApp voice notes whispered late at night. The geography changes—Jakarta to Kuala Lumpur, Surabaya to Johor, Batam to wherever the ferry is cheapest—but the logic stays depressingly familiar. Go quietly. Stay briefly. Earn fast. Come back clean. Lie politely.
What fascinates me isn’t that Indonesian women travel to Malaysia to sell sex. That part is boringly predictable in a region built on labour arbitrage and moral hypocrisy. What fascinates me is how calmly, strategically, and unsentimentally these women talk about it when no one is trying to rescue them. No violins, no sob stories. Just arithmetic. Two weeks here equals six months there. A few clients a day beats a factory shift that barely covers rice and school shoes. End of discussion.
And yet—oh, the theatre we build around it. The officials cluck about “admissions,” as if these women have just confessed to a crime against the nation rather than described a business model. The newspapers talk about “syndicates,” even when the real infrastructure is a cousin’s phone number and a Telegram group called something euphemistic like “Spa Friends KL.” Everyone wants a villain or a victim. No one wants a woman making a constrained but conscious choice.
What really gets me is the double performance required. In Malaysia, invisibility. Don’t attract attention, don’t look too local, don’t look too foreign. In Indonesia, respectability cosplay. “Kerja di salon” (working in a salon). “Jaga toko” (helping in a shop). A little gold bracelet here, a new phone there, but never too much. Prosperity, yes—but modestly, so nobody asks uncomfortable questions.
And we should talk about that silence. Families often know. Not fully, not explicitly, but enough. Money arrives regularly. Questions stop. Morality becomes flexible when school fees are due. That silence is not ignorance; it’s a social contract. You don’t embarrass us, we don’t interrogate you.
What irritates me most is how quickly society reaches for pity while refusing respect. These women are not liberated icons, but they are not fools either. They understand risk. They understand shame. They understand that this is temporary—at least psychologically—even if temporariness keeps stretching. They are managing borders, laws, desire, and stigma with more sophistication than the men who claim authority over their lives.
So spare me the sanctimony. If governments really cared, they’d ask why short-term sex work across borders makes more economic sense than any “respectable” job available at home. Until then, these women will keep travelling, keep lying politely, and keep surviving in the narrow space between necessity and judgment. And honestly? Given the options, I can’t say they’re irrational.