Every year, thousands of people go missing along irregular migration routes in Southeast Asia: on foot, in trucks, and often, in overcrowded boats.
The consequences can be fatal.
According to the U.N. refugee agency, 2024 marked the deadliest year on record for irregular maritime movements in the Andaman Sea. Those who perish from these journeys have names, but many are legally unrecognized.
Undocumented and unseen, people without legal identity face layered risks from being denied basic services and livelihood opportunities, which in turn results in higher vulnerability to exploitation and statelessness.
This can lead to individuals selecting to pursue clandestine passages as their only perceived option to a better life.
Legal identity is conferred on individuals through birth registration and the provision of formal, recognized documentation, such as birth certificates or national identity cards by governments and authorized entities.
The link between legal identity and migration, while perhaps not immediately obvious, is an important topic for the Southeast Asian region to understand and address.
The past decade has seen legal identity high on the regional agenda, through the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Asia-Pacific Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) Decade. The 2023 Adelaide Strategy for Cooperation recognizes civil registration as a critical element of victim protection and migration management, and aligns the Bali Process’ mandate with that of the civil registration agenda.
In 2015, the United Nations adopted 17 universal global goals to promote peace and prosperity for all by 2030. Target 16.9 of the Sustainable Development Goals calls for the provision of legal identity for all, including birth registration. While progress has been made, much remains possible yet, with an estimated 850 million persons worldwide still lacking any official record of their legal identity.
At the Regional Support Office of the Bali Process, recent research has highlighted the human costs from a lack of legal identity in the context of migration decisions. Legal identity – or the lack of it – plays a direct role in pushing people into precarious and even life-threatening situations.
A 2025 Regional Support Office report on community perceptions and information needs of persons at risk of irregular migration found that 15 percent of some 600 surveyed individuals across Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand had attempted to migrate through legal channels but couldn’t, primarily due to a lack of documents or unaffordable costs. Many ultimately turned to irregular channels.
Data and assessments from regional stakeholders suggest that in the face of known dangers and great personal risk, the numbers of maritime and overland movements will continue to increase.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 647 people died at sea during attempted migration journeys in Asia in 2024, a sixfold increase in just one year. Last year also saw the seventh year-on-year increase in recorded migrant deaths in the Asia-Pacific.
The consequences of access to legal identity were an important discussion point when the Regional Support Office, together with the government of Malaysia as ASEAN chair for 2025 and voluntary lead shepherd for people smuggling, convened ASEAN member states, in addition to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Timor-Leste and Australia for a regional meeting on maritime people smuggling in the Andaman Sea.
The meeting gathered senior officials to drive forward progress on a strengthened shared regional approach, ahead of the 2025/26 sailing season, which starts from around September each year, when attempted maritime crossings reach their peak with calmer seas.
Across Southeast Asia, change is already underway.
In March 2025, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration signed a Memorandum of Understanding with six other government agencies to fast-track citizenship for 483,000 people, part of Thailand’s broader effort to legalize the status of long-term migrants, stateless persons, and ethnic minorities.
The reform marks a dramatic shift where applicants can self-certify their eligibility, replacing a previously lengthy process. The goal is to provide citizenship to more than a million people within two years.
Thailand, together with other Southeast Asian countries, are acknowledging that legal identity isn’t peripheral, but is central to national development and economic growth.
Around the region, progress on legal identity has gathered pace. Malaysia set an early example in 2001 with MyKad, one of the world’s first biometric national identity cards. The Philippines followed in the early 2000s by digitizing civil registration through PhilCRIS. More recently, Cambodia passed a landmark CRVS-ID Law in 2023. The Philippines is now advancing its Civil Registration Bill, which could extend legal identity to over 3.7 million people. Meanwhile, Indonesia is rolling out a national digital ID, and Singapore now mandates online birth registration via LifeSG.
What’s driving this push?
First, economic necessity. Migrant labor drives Southeast Asia’s economies, both internally and across borders. Efficient and accessible civil registry and vital statistics systems help regulate and support this flow.
Governments are also turning their attention to how people without identity documents become more vulnerable to smugglers and organized criminal networks.
In 2023, the Regional Support Office updated the Bali Process Toolkit for Inclusive Civil Registration and developed Guidance on Birth Registration for Civil Registrars, providing countries with enhanced practical guidance to support inclusive civil registration. This work responds to the urgent need to close registration gaps that expose vulnerable groups – such as refugees, stateless persons, and migrants – to exploitation and trafficking in persons.
Individuals with lived experience offer unique valuable insights on the realities of how policies implemented by governments impact individuals in a real-world setting, and where there are gaps and room for improvement.
We were honored to work closely with Kanteera Techaphattanakul, a formerly stateless woman from Chiang Mai, Thailand, who shared her experiences in support of our work.
Kanteera’s birth was not formally registered through a birth certificate. Although she was able to access basic services, education, and healthcare during her childhood, she found herself facing limitations when it came to higher education and international travel. With support from her teachers and peers, she eventually obtained Thai citizenship. She later represented Thailand at an international science fair and trained as a science technician.
Kanteera’s story demonstrates how legal identity can open doors and support individuals to meet their potential. Without proper documentation, many others in the region still face significant barriers in their day-to-day life.
When governments gather for the Third Ministerial Conference on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics in Asia and the Pacific on June 24-26, it will be a chance to set new benchmarks for inclusion.
However, it will also come amid unprecedented regional challenges: post-pandemic recovery, the trafficking in persons and related exploitation in the form of cyber-scam centers, and increasing human and natural drivers of irregular migration.
To address inequalities in civil registration, governments across the region may benefit from reviewing barriers to regular migration, including gaps in existing civil registration systems, and fees and bureaucratic processes associated with regular routes for migration. Governments can share and review policies and bilateral and multilateral agreements around labor migration.
Governments can take steps to enhance civil registration, including providing mobile registration units in remote areas, informal settlements, and urban migrant communities to enhance inclusion among marginalized groups.
Additionally, awareness campaigns on the benefits of civil registration and available public services enabling civil registration should be tailored to consider and resonate with the different needs and cultural backgrounds of different audiences. Effective outreach could include through community meetings and cultural events to reach underserved populations. This can in turn help to address misconceptions and enhance a community’s understanding of the limitations their children may face in the future if a birth is not properly registered.
Financial and material incentives, such as subsidies or travel allowances, can also help ease the financial burden on rural, low-income, and marginalized or displaced families, encouraging more parents to register their children.
Most importantly, trust must be built. People must know that registering a birth, or applying for documents, will bring further security and opportunity, as opposed to scrutiny or even punishment for themselves and their families.
In the coming years, Southeast Asia should continue to build on the momentum and progress achieved to address this issue head-on. The Third Ministerial Conference in June stands as a key juncture to galvanize regional action and set a course towards adoption of CRVS systems that are capable of delivering legal identity for all.
Without legal recognition, millions will remain invisible, exposed to risks that could have been prevented. But with comprehensive and inclusive policies, regional collaboration, and a focus on inclusivity and resilience, Southeast Asia can move closer to a future where everyone is counted, seen, and protected.
