The junta has initiated the conscription of women aged 18 and above in Hsihseng Township, southern Shan State.
Since early January, the junta has been compiling a list of women aged 18 to 27 in Hsihseng for conscription, with students among those recorded, locals reported.
Junta-appointed ward administrators then visited the homes of women on the list, delivering notification letters informing them of their selection for enlistment. The administrators also told concerned women that if they were currently ineligible to serve due to being in school, they could negotiate a payment.
“The letter-sending only started recently. If we don’t want to go for enlistment, it basically means we have to pay whatever they ask. People don’t even dare to go out at night because there have been reports of young men being abducted for conscription. I think the junta is starting to draft women because there aren’t enough men left to conscript,” said a woman from Hsihseng Township.
In addition, young men conscripted by the junta in the earliest batches have not returned home after completing their terms and have lost all contact with their families, she told Shan Herald.
The first batch of conscripts was selected by the junta through a lottery system and began military training in April 2024. The total number of conscription batches has now reached 21.
The junta-aligned Pa-O National Organisation (PNO) conducted conscription drives not only in Hsihseng, Hopong, Pinlaung, and Nyaungshwe townships, where it wields influence, but also in Taunggyi Township in southern Shan State, until August last year. The PNO trained the young men it drafted, deployed them to the front lines, and assigned them to guard duties.
From September 2025 until the first week of February 2026, the PNO’s conscription drive was reportedly on hold, according to locals.
Although the PNO’s conscription has halted, the junta is now intensifying its recruitment efforts, raising concerns for the local youths and threatening the livelihoods of the families who depend on them.
“The PNO hasn’t done anything to protect us from the junta’s conscription. Before, they promised that if we joined the PNO, the junta wouldn’t draft us. But now the junta is drafting everyone, students, men, women, no one is spared. We’re even struggling just to make ends meet, so we don’t have the money to pay our way out of conscription,” said a mother of a young man in Hsihseng Township.
In Hsihseng Township, junta troops and allied Pyusawhti militia frequently conduct night patrols, interrogating and sometimes detaining the people who are out after dark.
In 2024 and 2025, residents of Hsihseng endured conscription by both the junta and the PNO, as well as the collection of a monthly fee labeled as a conscription fund.
