Young men across Myanmar are increasingly living in fear of being abducted and forced into military service, as the junta intensifies its efforts to fulfil recruitment quotas amidst an ongoing civil war. Reports from across the country, including the capital of southern Karen state, Hpa-An, describe a climate of widespread panic, corruption, and human rights abuses.
In Hpa-An, it has become conventional wisdom for young, able-bodied men to avoid being out after dark. A 26-year-old tuk-tuk driver, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, expressed constant vigilance. "My family call me all the time and remind me not to drive passengers too far; to be careful who I take as a passenger... I have to be vigilant all the time," he stated, adding, "People are panicked and frightened. Some people I know have been taken."
Locals in Hpa-An describe plain-clothed members and supporters of the Myanmar junta arbitrarily arresting individuals in their teens, 20s, and 30s directly from the streets and forcing them into military service. Leaked documents seen by BBC Burmese indicate that authorities have been ordered to aggressively meet military recruitment quotas across all jurisdictions, a move aimed at bolstering the junta's ranks as it faces a war of attrition against ethnic militias, pro-democracy groups, and civilian-led resistance movements.
Zaw Min, who is the only sibling in his family of recruitment age, noted that many of his peers have fled the country to Thailand or sought refuge with relatives in more distant areas. Those who remain often abide by strict parental instructions to be home before dusk.
Myanmar has been engulfed in a bloody civil war since February 2021, when its military launched a coup d'état, ousting democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Three years into the conflict, and following a series of significant losses, a decline in morale, and high rates of desertion, the junta enacted a mandatory conscription law. This legislation, introduced in early 2024, mandates that all men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27 must serve at least two years under military command. Refusal to comply carries a penalty of up to five years in prison.
Maj Naung Yoe, a military affairs official at the Myanmar Defense and Security Institute (MDSI) and a former military officer who defected to the anti-coup Civil Disobedience Movement, described the law's enactment as "one of the most severe and impactful actions taken against the entire civilian population since the military coup."
Hpa-An is the latest area to be swept up in a dragnet that has already reportedly ensnared an estimated 100,000 young recruits over the past two-and-a-half years. Many of these individuals have been conscripted through coercive tactics, extortion, and abductions. "Security forces track young people's movements to arrest them, force them into service under the pretext of statutory military eligibility, extort money through threats of detention, and arrest individuals during guest-list inspections," Naung Yoe explained.
The BBC contacted the Myanmar government's Central Body for Summoning People's Military Servants for comment on these incidents, including allegations of forced recruitment and recent abductions, but did not receive a response.
The mandatory conscription law has effectively established a human supply chain to sustain the armed forces. Observers note that these reinforcements have played a critical role in helping the regime reclaim territory, pushing the resistance onto the back foot in several parts of Myanmar. However, the conflict remains far from over. As more young people attempt to evade conscription, either by joining the resistance or simply avoiding armed conflict, the junta's recruitment methods have become increasingly extreme.
International human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Fortify Rights, have reported that Myanmar's military is abducting civilians and coercing them into military service. In July, the open-source research organisation Myanmar Witness analysed hundreds of missing-person advertisements posted on Facebook between 2021 and 2025. Their findings revealed a sharp increase in missing person notices for January, rising from four in 2021 (pre-coup) to 82 in 2025 (post-conscription law). The organisation concluded that "much of [the Myanmar military's] recruitment appears to be carried out through detention, coercion, and disappearance rather than formal call-up, and often without notice to families." The majority of reported missing persons were men and boys.
Ma Moe San Pan, from Yangon, shared her distressing experience regarding her 33-year-old husband, Phyo Wai, who she last saw on the morning of 8 May 2025. Following an argument, Phyo Wai left home. Ma Moe San Pan confided in her cousin, who worked at the local ward administration office, asking him to bring her husband back. Two days later, Phyo Wai called her from a military recruitment centre on the other side of the city. According to Ma Moe San Pan, her cousin had taken Phyo Wai to the ward office, which then allegedly sold him to another ward for 4 million kyats (approximately $900; £680) to help meet that ward's recruitment quota. The BBC was unable to reach Ma Moe San Pan's cousin for comment.
In a desperate attempt to secure her husband's release, Ma Moe San Pan was subsequently scammed out of 4.5 million kyats by individuals who falsely promised to help. U Maung Maung Lwin, the administrator of the ward to which Phyo Wai was taken, later admitted to the BBC that he had played a role in sending Phyo Wai to the military recruitment authorities. While he acknowledged that transfers from other townships occur when local quotas cannot be met, he denied any money was involved in such cases or in Phyo Wai's conscription.
"[Phyo Wai] told me they said they would help him and made him sign documents," Ma Moe San Pan recalled. "If my husband had been legally selected for conscription through the normal process, I could have accepted that. What I cannot accept is that our own ward administration office allegedly sold him to another ward. I also regret placing my trust in my cousin."
Ma Moe San Pan has filed police complaints concerning both the alleged sale of her husband into military service and the money she lost to scammers. She stated that while the police accepted her complaint, they refused her request to include human trafficking charges, claiming such a case could only be registered if a person had been sold abroad.
Ma Moe San Pan's case underscores a grim mutation of the junta's mandatory conscription laws: mounting pressure from higher echelons of the regime has created perverse incentives at lower administrative levels. Surging demand for recruits and dwindling supply have fuelled an illicit market. According to Naung Yoe, security officials are now resorting to arresting young people at road checkpoints, tracking workers during their commutes, setting traps through fake job advertisements, and forcibly entering homes. "Under the guise of the conscription law, these coercive arrests and recruitment drives have effectively transformed into a modern-day slavery and human trafficking enterprise," he asserted.
In late August, Yangon police arrested a member of the Fire Services Department, a branch of the home affairs ministry, along with his son-in-law, for abducting four young men with the intention of selling them for military conscription. The reserve fire brigade unit commander allegedly lured the men with promises of employment, trapping them in purpose-built detention rooms at his house. Police raided the residence on 25 August, arresting him. He has since been charged with kidnapping or abducting to wrongfully confine a person, facing up to seven years in prison. BBC Burmese's attempts to contact the police station holding him were unsuccessful.
"Lower-level administrative bodies, military personnel and local criminal gangs employ diverse tactics to press-gang and arrest young people," Naung Yoe explained. "They sell these individuals to military units and regional commands facing manpower shortages, or traffic substitute recruits on behalf of wealthier individuals seeking to buy their way out of service."
While conscription orders are ostensibly indiscriminate, demanding proportional quotas from each village, ward, or township, wealthier conscripts can often pay to avoid the draft, with financially vulnerable individuals being recruited as replacements. This mechanism ensures that the burden disproportionately falls on the poor. Naung Yoe told the BBC that "these practices are escalating due to increasing difficulties in meeting monthly recruitment quotas and the lucrative financial profits made from recruit trading at the ground level."
The hardening stance of forced conscription also reflects the junta's desperation for manpower. Dr Sandeep Singh, a research fellow specialising in military studies at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, commented that it "seems to be another step in the junta's efforts to enlist unwilling youth in a conflict that underscores its embattled position in the civil war." The atmosphere of routine abductions, he added, has "generated further difficulties on the youth of Myanmar, already affected by years of civil war, and their families."
Beyond the daily anxiety, many would-be recruits now fear being compelled to fight in a deadly conflict they neither support nor believe in. This constant threat has led to massive internal displacement and severe labour shortages in an already struggling economy, with many fleeing to neighbouring countries. Observers suggest that having spent over half a decade waging war against its own population, the junta is now wielding the conscription law as yet another tool of subjugation. As the MDSI stated in June, "The generals have benefited by using military law to make the citizens fight against each other."
