Myanmar Spring Chronicle – Scenes from June 20
(MoeMaKa), June 21, 2026
The Problem of Forced Military Recruitment
The problem of forced military recruitment in Myanmar did not begin only after 2021 or after the activation of the Conscription Law in 2024. To a certain extent, it has existed throughout the long history of Myanmar’s civil war. As armed conflicts continued and casualties mounted, the military, ethnic armed organizations (EAOs), and other armed groups all sought to maintain their troop strength through various recruitment methods.
Ethnic armed organizations generally recruited from among local people who shared their ethnicity and language, unless they were facing an acute manpower shortage. Their recruitment efforts were often framed through a nationalist lens. For example, Shan, Kachin, Pa-O, Karen, Mon, and Ta’ang/Palaung armed groups typically prioritized recruiting local people of the same ethnicity. As a secondary option, they also recruited members of other ethnic communities residing in territories under their control. For instance, Kachin armed organizations have recruited local Shan-ni residents living in areas they control.
When recruiting members of other ethnic groups living within their territories, armed organizations also had to consider factors such as whether those ethnic groups had their own armed organizations and what relationships existed between those organizations and their own.
Although Mon State and Karen State have many overlapping and adjoining areas, there are relatively few Mon people serving in Karen armed organizations and relatively few Karen people serving in Mon armed organizations.
Before the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, and before the era when large numbers of Myanmar citizens migrated abroad for work, the government military did not need to rely heavily on aggressive recruitment. Many young people from economically underdeveloped regions and areas without significant ethnic armed organizations voluntarily joined the military as a career opportunity. Consequently, widespread forced recruitment was generally unnecessary.
Between the 1960s and 1980s, many young people from less-developed regions such as Rakhine, Chin, Magway, Sagaing, Mandalay, and Bago entered military service as a source of employment. During those decades, many Rakhine and Chin individuals began their military careers as ordinary soldiers.
The military also clearly prioritized recruiting members of ethnic groups that did not have active insurgent organizations fighting against the state. As a result, it was often more willing to recruit people from ethnic communities without strong armed movements, rather than from groups such as the Shan, Kachin, Karen, or Mon, which had established and powerful ethnic armed organizations.
After the 1988 nationwide uprising, military service became less attractive from a political standpoint, and opportunities to work abroad expanded. As a result, recruitment became far more difficult than it had been before 1988. During this period, practices such as recruiting child soldiers and requiring those wishing to leave the military to find replacement recruits began to emerge. Under the SLORC and SPDC regimes, forced recruitment and substitute recruitment for discharge became widespread.
During the same period, some ethnic armed organizations also recruited by issuing orders requiring one person from each household, or a specified number of sons from families with multiple male children, to serve in the armed forces. As a result, many families in ethnic regions sent their children into Buddhist monastic life before they reached military age. Large numbers of novice monks, monks, and nuns from ethnic areas could be found studying in monasteries and nunneries in major cities such as Mandalay, Yangon, Pakokku, Mawlamyine, Bago, and Pyay. This trend remains visible today.
After 2021, armed resistance groups emerged both in Bamar-majority regions and in ethnic areas, while the civil war intensified dramatically. As a result, both the military and ethnic armed organizations faced growing pressure to expand their forces. The military found itself needing to recruit soldiers at a time when its political popularity had reached historic lows. In contrast, resistance and ethnic armed groups benefited from a steady flow of volunteers opposed to the military coup. This situation largely persisted from 2021 through 2024–2025.
From mid-2021 onward, as the civil war escalated, both sides increasingly faced desertions, battlefield deaths, and injuries that rendered fighters unable to continue serving. These challenges affected armed organizations on both sides to varying degrees.
For the military junta, these circumstances contributed directly to the decision to activate the compulsory military service law in order to secure the manpower it needed. Resistance groups did not face the same level of crisis as the junta, but reports indicate that they too have encountered increasing difficulties in replacing casualties and maintaining sufficient recruitment levels.
The junta’s recruitment efforts have become entangled with economic, political, and social problems in urban areas. The recruitment process has reportedly fostered corruption and extortion within the military, administrative system, and police force. For ordinary citizens, this has meant not only being drawn into the war but also being forced to pay tens to hundreds of millions of kyats to avoid conscription—an experience unprecedented in Myanmar’s history.
Beyond reports of forced recruitment by the junta, news has also emerged of recruitment-related problems in some ethnic areas.
In parts of Rakhine State, Kachin State, and Chin State, reports have surfaced of compulsory call-up orders for military service, as well as dissatisfaction arising from the recruitment of members of other ethnic communities.
Questions about how recruitment is conducted, whether civilians’ circumstances are understood and respected, whether recruitment relies on persuasion or coercive orders, and how ethnically based armed organizations manage the challenges of recruiting people from different ethnic backgrounds are all becoming increasingly important. As Myanmar’s civil war continues to intensify, these issues are likely to become major challenges that every armed organization will inevitably have to confront.