Myanmar’s current conscription system is an act of fascist control, exploiting the lives of civilians in order to safeguard the country’s military junta against resistance forces.
In 2024, the junta started enforcing the 2010 People’s Military Service Law, making it mandatory for men to serve as conscripts. Over a year later, as expected, the law has not resulted in a newborn patriotic spirit and warm homecoming, but merely created a scenario where conscripts are at the army’s mercy; and may never even come home.
Now, it is the women’s turn.
For most women in Myanmar, including myself, the threat of forced conscription presents a dilemma of choice: Shall we leave everything we have behind for an uncertain pursuit of freedom and safety, but risk the wrath of the junta? Or shall we unwillingly become conscripts and hope to be spared from the exploitation of our bodies, our lives, and our people?
The current conscription drive is not about patriotism. It is merely the junta’s way of asserting dominance over people’s rights, lives, and bodies.
What is Happening?
Since the military junta’s attempted coup in 2021, Myanmar has witnessed escalating human rights abuses. The ensuing conflict has caused a mass exodus of civilians: more than 3.5 million are now internally displaced and more than 1 million have attempted to flee into neighboring countries. Following the recent activation of the military service law, these numbers are significantly increasing.
Conscripts do not receive any protection nor any benefits, and they are not entitled to objections and reassignments. Instead, they face various forms of repression as well as exploitation as human shields, minesweepers, arsonists, and porters.
Forced conscriptions through abductions are also happening, a burden that is falling particularly hard on the most vulnerable civilians, including children, LGBTQIA+ people, refugees, the homeless, people experiencing homelessness, people with disabilities, and many other marginalized groups.
Although women aged 18 to 27 were eligible for enlistment during the initial enforcement of the military service law in 2024, they were not conscripted. This is now changing.
Despite the junta’s initial denials, women were silently enlisted for military service as early as mid-2024. This year, the collection of data on eligible women across wider parts of Myanmar has begun, signaling that mass recruitments are imminent.
Names of married women have also been added to the junta’s recent data collections of eligible women even though the service law supposedly exempts them from conscription.
The service law allows young women students to apply for a postponement, although some of their applications are reportedly being denied.
With the military’s enduring disregard for its own eligibility criteria paired with the fact that it has been forcibly conscripting underaged boys, forced conscription is possible not just for women but also young girls – regardless of whether or not they are eligible. This presents grave dangers to women and girls who have been at heightened risk of gender-based violence, discrimination, and oppression since the junta came into power.
Worsening Violence Against Women
Gender-based harassment and violence towards women and girls in Myanmar have been pervasive problems under the country’s postcolonial militarized system – one that places the military largely above the law and prevents the junta from being held accountable for its crimes.
The Myanmar military has historically committed widespread human rights violations against women and girls, especially those from rural and minority communities. This system of oppression includes abductions, sexual violence and exploitation, forced marriages, and forced labor.
The approaching conscription of women will be history repeating itself. This amplifies and prolongs the dangers they face, as conscripts are trapped under the junta’s control.
Since the attempted coup, cases of sexual assault and gender-based violence have been rampant, and there is ample evidence that rape is being used as a weapon of war. In fact, by one account, soldiers were have effectively been given “the authority to rape women.” Women and girls from across Myanmar have been increasingly targeted and arbitrarily detained by the junta in retaliation for their resistance and activism. Female detainees are reportedly subjected to harassment, torture, and assault during and beyond their initial interrogations.
Women and girls in active war zones are vulnerable to being caught during military raids, airstrikes, arson, and clashes. Such incidents have been intensifying since February 2021.
Now, women are also at risk of forced conscription, exposing them to further violence, exploitation, coercion, and the continued horrors of war.
What Can Be Done?
The world should not forget about the plight of the people of Myanmar. It is critical to emphasize the importance of international solidarity and pressure as the atrocities in Myanmar have largely been lacking in the media and in public discourse. More needs to be done to bring attention to Myanmar’s human rights and humanitarian crises. We urgently need support from international allies and authorities as we continue our fight for justice.
In response to the accumulating atrocities in Myanmar, it is imperative that we take urgent action to support on-the-ground organizations – particularly ethnic-led ones – by contributing to providing aid, healthcare, refuge, education, advocacy initiatives and social services for vulnerable and at-risk populations, including those who are fleeing or have fled conscription.
International allies also need to raise and sustain awareness about what is happening in Myanmar: share our stories, amplify the voices of those affected, make proactive calls to action, and show solidarity through various forms of virtual and on-the-ground activism.
Finally, international bodies, including the United Nations and ASEAN, need to intervene proactively, not just in their rhetoric but through concrete actions, to hold the military junta accountable for its crimes. There should be more focus on the protection of people’s rights which can be done by imposing comprehensive military sanctions, increasing emergency and sustainable humanitarian aid, prosecuting military personnel, and other impactful measures.
The international community must recognize that the military’s violent history has been allowed to repeat itself because of the continuous lack of accountability. Prolonged silence and inaction will only contribute to the intensifying cost of innocent lives over time.
Please do not forget about us. Please do not abandon the people of Myanmar, including my fellow women, my sisters.
