Hpa-An is the latest to be caught in a dragnet that’s already ensnared an estimated 100,000 young recruits over the past two-and-a-half years – many of them via coercion, 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 says.
The BBC contacted the Myanmar government’s Central Body for Summoning People’s Military Servants regarding incidents mentioned in this story, including the forced recruitment of conscripts and reports of abductions allegedly carried out in recent months.
They said they had no comment on the matter.
With the mandatory conscription law, the junta has established a human supply chain to sustain its armed forces. And it appears to have worked. Observers note that reinforcements have played a critical role in helping the regime claw back more territory. In many parts of Myanmar, the resistance is now on the back foot.
The war, though, is far from over. And as more youths evade conscription – either to join the resistance or simply avoid armed conflict against their fellow countrymen – the junta’s recruitment methods have become ever more extreme.
International rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Fortify Rights say Myanmar’s military is abducting civilians and forcing them into military service.
In July, open-source research organisation Myanmar Witness revealed that they had analysed hundreds of missing-person advertisements collected from Facebook between 2021 and 2025.
Researchers found that missing person notices for January rose from four in 2021, pre-coup, to 82 in 2025, post-conscription law.
“In practice, 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,” they concluded.
Men and boys constituted the majority of reported missing persons.
