Myanmar’s junta has begun conscripting women into the military to help shore up troop losses despite claims to the contrary, residents said Wednesday.
Under the People’s Military Service Law, enacted by the junta in February after junta forces have suffered battlefield defeats to rebel forces, men between the ages of 18 and 35 and women between 18 and 27 can be drafted to serve in the armed forces for two years. Married women and women with children are exempt from service.
The announcement triggered a wave of assassinations of administrators enforcing the law and drove thousands of draft-dodgers into rebel-controlled territory and abroad.
The military carried out two rounds of conscriptions in April and May, training about 9,000 new recruits in total. A third round of conscription began in late May, with draftees sent to their respective training depots by June 22, but the junta has said it will not begin drafting women until the fifth round.
However, residents of Myanmar’s southwestern Ayeyarwady region told RFA Burmese that authorities in the wards and villages of Maubin, Hinthada and Pathein townships have been enlisting women for service since late last month, conducting raffles and sending legal summons to households.
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“Women have been enlisted for military training since May 29, as not enough males were recruited for the No. 6 training depot in Pathein,” said one resident who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.
“Women dormitories are urgently being constructed at the depot. In Maubin, women are being enlisted by a raffle system for the third batch of training.”
A resident of Hinthata cited sources close to the township’s administrative officials as saying that female military personnel will be enlisted “starting this week” in some neighborhoods.
Reports of the new eligibility has prompted many young women to join the exodus of draft-dodgers to rebel safe zones and out of the country, sources said.
Summons sent to households
Meanwhile, ward and village authorities in southern Myanmar’s Tanintharyi region are also preparing to recruit women, residents told RFA, with administrative authorities in Myeik township instructing the heads of 100 households to enlist those eligible for the draft.
In Tanintharyi’s Dawei township, legal notices were recently issued to the houses of two women, summoning them for military service, said a resident, who also declined to be named.
"Authorities sent the letters to two women in Kyet Sar Pyin village,” he said. “However, one of the women had already left once the conscription law was announced [in February]. Many young people have already migrated to Thailand. There are no youths to be seen.”
Repeated phone calls to the chairman’s office of the Central Body for Summoning People’s Military Servants and similar offices in Tanintharyi and Ayeyarwady regions, seeking clarification on whether women are being enlisted for military service, went unanswered Wednesday.
Captain Kaung Thu Win, a former military officer who joined the Civil Disobedience Movement of civil servants boycotting the junta, told RFA that drafted women will likely be assigned office work or stationed with auxiliary units.
“They’re unlikely to be dispatched to the frontline immediately,” he said. “There is a possibility they would have to take on security duties in the towns, but there is very little chance of that happening.”
According to the People's Military Service Law, the term for military service period is set at two years, but experts are required to serve for three years, and five years during a state of emergency.
Those who have been summoned to military service and refuse face up to three years in prison and fines, while those who encourage violations of the law are subject to one year in prison and fines.
Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.