Myanmar’s Youth Leaders Fear Conscription Law

FILE - People wait in line to enter the Thai Embassy for visas in Yangon, Myanmar, on Feb. 20, 2024. Crowds of people have thronged to get passports and visas to neighboring Thailand since the government activated a law making 14 million young people subject to conscription. Robert Minn, a youth activist for Milk Tea Alliance-Friends of Myanmar, was recently stopped at a checkpoint in Yangon, Myanmar, and asked to join the army. He was given a military conscription law leaflet like this one.

Myanmar’s youth leaders are determined to avoid the military’s conscription law that could see them fight against the very resistance they are part of.