Myanmar has struggled with civil war, military rule and widespread poverty for much of the past seven decades. But the country’s youth have never faced threats to their survival and future as severe as today.

The military coup of February 2021 shattered the hopes of many young people in Myanmar who had envisioned a better and more stable future under their democratically elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

As brutal crackdowns on peaceful protests unfolded, thousands of young people fled to the jungles to take up arms. Hundreds of thousands more joined the civil disobedience movement, abandoning their studies to protest military rule through demonstrations and strikes.

Myanmar’s armed opposition has made significant gains over the past year, seizing vast territories from the military – though the latter still controls major cities like Naypyidaw, Yangon, and Mandalay.

Amid the surging violence, young people in Myanmar are finding themselves even more deprived of opportunities and increasingly forced into submission.

In February 2024, Myanmar’s junta declared mandatory military service for men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27. Those who do not comply face up to five years in prison.

More recently, the military has reportedly ramped up its conscription drive. Reports of young men being abducted to boost the number of military conscripts, for example, are spreading at an alarming rate.

For many, overseas education offers the only escape, as it grants temporary exemption from conscription. Yet this path remains a privilege of the wealthy. With Myanmar’s currency in freefall, tuition fees and living costs abroad have become prohibitively expensive for most.

For those unable to afford overseas education, the already limited funding landscape has rapidly deteriorated. The United States Agency for International Development (USAid) funding freeze has suspended the development and inclusive scholarship program, a lifeline for Myanmar’s financially struggling yet qualified students.

As a result, more than 400 Myanmar students pursuing degrees in the Philippines, Cambodia, Indonesia and Thailand now face an uncertain future. Returning home is perilous as the junta escalates its militarisation of the youth.

When mandatory conscription was announced, it triggered a wave of conscientious objection and evasion. A study by the non-profit Burma Affairs & Conflict Study group, published in April 2024, estimated that at least 100,000 young men had attempted to evade conscription within two months of the announcement.

Then, in early 2025, the military’s conscription efforts were expanded by compiling lists of eligible women. Women were eligible for conscription already, but had not yet been called for service. This sparked another wave of frantic migration as young women scrambled to escape forced enlistment.

Those eligible for conscription also face an outright ban on leaving the country for work. Myanmar’s international airports, particularly the airport in Yangon, have become nerve centres of surveillance, coercion and corruption. Officials wield unchecked power over young travellers, creating a system where bribery dictates who can depart and who remains trapped.

For many young people, internal migration – going into hiding to evade conscription – or irregular border crossings into neighbouring Thailand have become their only choices.

Meanwhile, Myanmar’s armed resistance has been making bold declarations of a decisive strike against the junta in 2025. In an interview with Al Jazeera in January, the leader of Myanmar’s government in exile, Duwa Lashi La, said: “We have to strike a final blow [against the junta].”

Resistance groups have been urging young people to evade conscription and join their ranks in the fight for freedom. And many have reportedly answered the call. Yet, while this may seem like a justified response, the grim reality remains. Amid an increasingly brutal war, how many desperate young people truly see combat as their only path forward?

Inflicting deep harm

Mandatory conscription in Myanmar is not only affecting young people. It has also inflicted deep and lasting harm on their families and communities.

A study by human rights non-profit Hurfom, published in December 2024, found that forced recruitment has destroyed communities in southern Myanmar’s Mon State, Karen State and the Tanintharyi region. Generations have been left traumatised by the violence and repression they have experienced.

And increasing anecdotal reports I have gathered from among the Myanmar population reveal families desperately selling assets, pawning valuables or incurring crippling debt at exorbitant interest rates – all in a desperate effort to keep their children from falling into the military’s clutches.

The situation has become even more perilous for young and old members of the Rohingya ethnic group in Myanmar and refugee camps in Bangladesh.

These people are are already vulnerable due to their statelessness, lack of documentation and displacement. They now face a greater risk of abduction, forced conscription and entrapment in the crossfire between the Myanmar military and various opposition groups.

The long-term consequences of forced conscription are equally – if not more – grave. Young people are being robbed of their education, careers are being lost before they begin and families are being drained of resources in a desperate bid to secure a future that remains increasingly out of reach.

A UN Development Programme study released in April 2024 revealed that Myanmar’s middle class had collapsed by 50% within three years of the coup, highlighting the nation’s rapid economic decline.

Global attention understandably focuses on the escalating armed conflict in Myanmar and the worsening humanitarian crisis. But it is crucial not to overlook the deeper social costs of Myanmar’s turmoil. The destruction of its youth has consequences that will haunt the nation for decades.

Nyi Nyi Kyaw is Marie Curie Research Fellow in the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies, University of Bristol.

This article was first published on The Conversation.

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