According to military sources in Naypyidaw, forced porter arrests have increased across the country as most young people flee after receiving military service conscription notices from respective township military service recruitment committees. The Central Committee for People’s Military Service in Naypyidaw receives hundreds of daily complaints regarding forced porter arrests, and while top military officials in Naypyidaw are aware of the nationwide increase in such arrests, they will not take action as township-level recruitment is being carried out under instructions from state/regional and district military service committees.
Currently, each village and ward is required to provide 2 young people monthly for military service. Reports indicate that when 10 young people are summoned for military service, approximately 6 of them flee at the registration stage. Due to the very low success rate of recruitment through summons, there has been an increase in arrests of young people in public. The designated complaint centers advertised in newspapers receive hundreds of daily cases related to military service fees and forced conscription through arrests. In Yangon’s Mayangone Township Ward 2, out of over 6,000 people aged 18-35 eligible for military service, about 4,000 have left for overseas or remote areas for work. Among the remaining 2,000, many are paying bribes to avoid service. While previously they could conscript criminals and thieves from the ward, it has now become difficult to find recruits, and even paying for substitutes is no longer possible.
In Yangon’s Kyauktan Township, the township administrator is demanding over 30 million kyats per ward as military service fees, claiming it is for buying military service substitutes for the township. The cost of buying one substitute recruit is reportedly between 8-9 million kyats. Through 58 ward/village administrators in Kyauktan Township, households are being forced to pay between 10,000 to 150,000 kyats monthly, and residents are made to sign statements saying they are willingly paying these military service fees. The terrorist military has been conducting military training courses since 2024 and has now reached batch 17 of recruits.
