Myanmar’s military conscription campaign has left young men across the country afraid to go out after dark, with reports of arbitrary arrests, forced recruitment and people being taken from their homes and workplaces to meet military enlistment quotas.
In Hpa-An, the capital of southern Karen State, the fear has become part of everyday life. Young men who are physically fit and within the age range for military service are increasingly cautious about where they go and when they return home.
For Zaw Min, a 26-year-old tuk-tuk driver who asked the BBC to withhold his real name for safety reasons, staying indoors is not an option. He needs to work, despite the risk of being detained and forced into military service.
“I worry, but I have to go out to work,” he said. His family regularly calls to warn him against taking passengers too far from familiar areas and urges him to be careful about whom he picks up. “I have to be vigilant all the time.”
“People are panicked and frightened,” he added. “Some people I know have been taken.”
Residents say plain-clothed members and supporters of Myanmar’s military authorities have been moving through Hpa-An, targeting people in their teens, twenties and thirties. According to local accounts, some are arrested without warning and forced into the armed forces.
Leaked documents seen by BBC Burmese indicate that authorities have been instructed to meet military recruitment quotas aggressively across different administrative areas. The campaign comes as the military struggles to sustain its forces in a civil war against ethnic armed groups, pro-democracy organisations and civilian resistance movements.
Zaw Min is the only person among his siblings who falls within the recruitment age range. He says many young people he knows have left the area, moving to Thailand or staying with relatives elsewhere in Myanmar. Those who remain are often told by their parents to return home before sunset.
Myanmar’s current conflict began in February 2021, when the military seized power in a coup and removed the country’s elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. After suffering significant battlefield losses, experiencing desertions and facing difficulties maintaining troop numbers, the military authorities introduced compulsory military service in February 2024.
The law requires men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27 to serve for at least two years under military command. Those who refuse to comply can face up to five years in prison.
Major Naung Yoe, a former military officer who defected and joined the anti-coup Civil Disobedience Movement, described the law as one of the most consequential measures imposed on civilians since the coup. He now works as a military affairs official at the Myanmar Defense and Security Institute.
Hpa-An is the latest area where young people have reportedly been caught in a recruitment campaign that extends beyond formal conscription procedures. Estimates cited by observers suggest that around 100,000 people have been recruited over the previous two and a half years, with many allegedly subjected to coercion, extortion or abduction.
Naung Yoe said security personnel and local administrators track young people’s movements, detain those considered eligible for service and demand money from families under the threat of arrest. Some people are also detained during checks of household registration and guest lists.
The BBC contacted the military authorities’ Central Body for Summoning People’s Military Servants about allegations of forced recruitment and abductions in recent months. The body declined to comment.
The conscription system has helped the military maintain its supply of personnel, according to observers, and new recruits have contributed to its efforts to recover territory in parts of the country. However, the pressure to meet recruitment targets has also reportedly created opportunities for officials and intermediaries to exploit vulnerable people.
The scale of the problem is difficult to establish independently, but evidence gathered by human rights organisations and researchers points to growing concerns about people disappearing into military service without their families being informed.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Fortify Rights have reported allegations of civilians being abducted and forced to serve in Myanmar’s military. In July, the open-source research organisation Myanmar Witness published findings from an analysis of hundreds of missing-person notices posted on Facebook between 2021 and 2025.
The researchers found that the number of missing-person notices published in January rose from four in 2021, before the conscription law, to 82 in January 2025, after the law had taken effect. Men and boys accounted for most of the reported missing persons.
Myanmar Witness concluded that recruitment was often taking place through detention, coercion and disappearances rather than formal call-ups, with families frequently receiving no advance notice.
For some families, the fear of conscription has turned into a search for missing relatives, accompanied by accusations, financial losses and uncertainty about whether their loved ones are alive or where they are being held.
In Yangon, Ma Moe San Pan says she has not seen her 33-year-old husband, Phyo Wai, since the morning of 8 May 2025. She recalls that the two had argued before he left their home. Upset by the disagreement, she spoke to her cousin, who worked at the local ward administration office, and asked him to help bring her husband back.
Two days later, Phyo Wai called her from a military recruitment centre elsewhere in the city.
According to Ma Moe San Pan, her cousin had taken her husband to the ward office, which then transferred him to another ward in exchange for 4 million kyats, equivalent at the time to about $900 or 680 pounds sterling, to help meet that area’s recruitment quota. The BBC was unable to contact the cousin to obtain his response to the allegation.
Desperate to secure her husband’s release, Ma Moe San Pan later paid strangers 4.5 million kyats after they promised to arrange his return. She says the people took the money without fulfilling their promise.
U Maung Maung Lwin, the administrator of the ward where Phyo Wai was taken, acknowledged to the BBC that he had played a role in sending him to military recruitment authorities. He said transfers between townships sometimes occur when local areas cannot meet their recruitment quotas.
However, he denied that money had changed hands in such cases or that Phyo Wai had been sold into military service.
Ma Moe San Pan says her husband told her that officials had assured him they would help him before making him sign documents.
“If my husband had been legally selected for conscription through the normal process, I could have accepted that,” she said. “What I cannot accept is that our own ward administration office allegedly sold him to another ward.”
She also expressed regret over trusting her cousin.
Since her husband disappeared into the recruitment system, Ma Moe San Pan has filed police complaints over his alleged transfer into military service and the money she lost to the people who promised to secure his release. She says police accepted her complaints but refused to register a human trafficking charge, telling her that such a case could only be filed if someone had been sold abroad.
She still does not know where her husband is being held.
His case illustrates how the pressure to supply recruits may create incentives for people involved in local administration to exploit the conscription system. According to Naung Yoe, recruitment quotas and shortages of eligible men have contributed to an informal market in which people are allegedly detained, transferred between administrative areas or recruited in exchange for money.
The reported methods include arrests at road checkpoints, ambushes during daily journeys to work, false job advertisements used to lure young men and raids on private homes. Some people are allegedly recruited to replace wealthier individuals who pay to avoid serving.
Although the rules require communities to provide recruits according to population-based quotas, the ability to pay can determine who is sent into military service, Naung Yoe said. People from poorer households are less able to buy their way out and are therefore more exposed to coercion.
He said the practice was becoming more common as local authorities struggled to meet monthly recruitment targets and the financial rewards for supplying recruits increased.
A case in Yangon in late August further highlighted the allegations. Police arrested a member of the Fire Services Department and his son-in-law over the alleged abduction of four young men intended for military recruitment.
The fire brigade unit commander was accused of luring the men to his home with promises of employment. According to the reported allegations, he held them in specially constructed detention rooms until police raided the property and arrested him on 25 August. He was charged with kidnapping or abduction for the purpose of wrongful confinement, an offence carrying a possible prison sentence of up to seven years.
BBC Burmese said it made several attempts to contact the police station where the suspect was being held but received no response.
Naung Yoe said local administrative bodies, military personnel and criminal groups use different methods to force young people into service. He also alleged that some recruits are supplied to military units and regional commands facing manpower shortages, while wealthier people who want to avoid conscription can arrange for others to serve in their place.
The recruitment campaign has intensified concerns about the impact of the war on Myanmar’s younger generation. Many young people already face years of instability, disrupted education and limited economic opportunities. The prospect of being forced to fight in a conflict they oppose has added another reason to leave their homes.
Dr Sandeep Singh, a research fellow who teaches military studies at the National University of Singapore, said the recruitment drive appeared to be another attempt by the military authorities to enlist unwilling young people as they faced mounting pressure in the civil war.
He said the threat of abduction and forced service had created further difficulties for young people and their families, who were already living with the effects of years of conflict.
The consequences extend beyond individual families. Fear of forced recruitment has contributed to displacement, labour shortages and the movement of people towards neighbouring countries. Those who remain must weigh the need to earn a living against the risk of being detained, while families try to protect young relatives from an increasingly unpredictable system.
After more than five years of conflict since the 2021 coup, compulsory military service has become another source of pressure on civilians. As the military seeks to replenish its ranks, reports of coercion and alleged recruitment-related trafficking raise questions about how the system is being enforced and who is paying the greatest price.
In a statement published in June, the Myanmar Defense and Security Institute said the military leadership had benefited from using military law to compel citizens to fight one another.
