Systematic forced recruitment drives are expanding across Myanmar. Incidents have been documented in Yangon and Myaungmya, in Putao in the far north, and under distinct coercive mechanisms in Myawaddy and Hpa-an. In Myingyan in Central Myanmar, abductions have escalated into door-to-door raids directly inside private homes.
As the post-coup conflict drags on, the military regime faces escalating combat across multiple front lines nationwide. To replenish severe troop depletion, the junta activated the ‘People’s Military Service Law’ targeting youth aged 18 to 35. Myanmar’s youth have actively resisted these measures by fleeing abroad, escaping to liberated areas under resistance control, paying bribes, or hiring proxy substitutes to avoid forced enlistment.
In response, the military authorities have increasingly bypassed statutory procedures, resorting to extra-legal abductions and deceptive financial incentives to fulfill recruitment quotas. Through these aggressive drives, the junta has reportedly conducted up to its 28th conscription intake, replenishing its ranks with an estimated total reaching hundreds of thousands of recruits. (Although official policy prescribes an intake quota of 5,000 recruits per batch, the military junta has not disclosed actual recruitment figures to the public).
In this issue of the Bi-Weekly News Review, BNI-Myanmar Peace Monitor examines the worsening sweeps across Myanmar to force youth into military servitude, as well as potential measures to counter and prevent them.
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