By Han Yin, August 10, 2026

The Myanmar military regime has begun training female conscripts for the first time since activating the country’s forced conscription law.

According to the Myanmar Defense & Security Institute (MDSI), a research organization founded by defecting military officers, female conscripts recently arrived at the No. 4 Warrant Officer and Sergeant Training School (YaKaTha-4) in Hmawbi Township, Yangon. Most of the women reportedly are factory workers from Yangon.

The MDSI reported that female conscription training will take place at YaKaTha-4 and at other military bases.

The regime activated Myanmar’s long-dormant conscription law on February 10, 2024. Under the law, men between the ages of 18 and 35 and women between the ages of 18 and 27 may be required to serve in the military for two years.

Training of male conscripts has already been underway for more than two years. The military is currently training its 27th batch of male draftees, and more than 135,000 men reportedly have been forcibly recruited. However, this is the first reported military training of female conscripts.

Reports from across Myanmar have also described young people being forcibly taken for military service, including through raids, arrests, and seizures at checkpoints. Some families have reportedly paid other people to serve as substitutes in an effort to prevent their relatives from being drafted.

During the regime-convened parliament on July 23, Deputy Home Affairs Minister Min Thu acknowledged that authorities had raided homes and seized young men at checkpoints. He claimed such measures were taken because many young people had left their townships to avoid military service.

Forced conscription is especially alarming because there is substantial international evidence that the Myanmar military has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity against civilians.

On August 11, 2026, the United Nations Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar reported that its investigations had found a pattern of deliberate aerial attacks on civilians by the Myanmar military, as well as arbitrary detention, torture, and sexual violence. The Mechanism investigated attacks against homes, schools, medical facilities, religious buildings, and camps for internally displaced persons.

The Mechanism has also identified some military units believed to be responsible for attacks against civilians and has collected extensive evidence concerning torture and sexual violence in military-run detention facilities.

This evidence is not limited to one incident. In January 2026, the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar stated that there was evidence that civilians throughout Myanmar had suffered atrocities amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity since the military takeover. The Mechanism reported that the military had carried out airstrikes that deliberately or indiscriminately struck civilians in their homes, hospitals, and schools.

Earlier investigations also documented the military’s use of aerial bombing against civilian populations, executions, destruction of villages, torture, and other serious abuses.

The connection between forced conscription and these documented crimes is therefore extremely serious. A person drafted into the Myanmar military does not freely choose the military organization, commanders, location, or operations in which he or she may be ordered to participate. Refusing military orders may also expose a conscript to punishment.

For a person who sincerely opposes the military’s treatment of civilians, forced conscription therefore creates a profound moral and personal danger. If I am forcibly conscripted into the Myanmar military, I could be ordered to participate in, support, or assist military operations connected with war crimes or crimes against humanity. Assisting such acts would be against my conscience, my beliefs, and my opposition to the military’s abuses against the people of Myanmar.

The beginning of female conscription is therefore more than an expansion of mandatory military service. It places young Burmese women at risk of being forced into an armed force whose members and commanders have been repeatedly accused, and in many cases documented by international investigators, of committing serious violations of international law.

For Burmese women who oppose military rule, the possibility of conscription creates an additional reason to fear return to Myanmar: they may face not only forced military service, but also the possibility of being compelled to assist a military involved in documented war crimes against their own people.

#WhatsHappeningInMyanmar From a Facebook  Article.