Myanmar

The Myanmar military’s recruitment and use of child soldiers has surged since the 2021 coup, including a significant number recruited after the junta enacted a conscription law in February 2024. On June 19, 2025, the United Nations Secretary-General reported that the UN had verified 2,138 grave violations against children in armed conflict in Myanmar in 2024, including recruitment of children, with about 1,200 additional violations pending verification.

In a statement marking the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the UN emphasized that 2024 saw a concerning increase in the recruitment and use of children in armed conflicts.

In February 2024, the military regime ruling Myanmar announced that it was mobilizing a “People’s Military Service Law”. The law allows for the conscription of male citizens aged 18 to 35 and female citizens aged 18 to 27. The announcement has caused fear and loathing among the country’s 14 million young people and their families.

Cheddite is a French-Italian company with headquarters in Livorno, Italy and Bourg-lès-Valence, France. They are one of the world’s largest manufacturers of empty shot gun shells and primers.

Amnesty International has identified a sub-machine gun used by security services in Myanmar against unarmed nonviolent protesters as a BA-94 or BA-93 Uzi clone.

WRI denounces the military oppression and violence in Myanmar, calls for a nonviolent civil response to the crisis, and demands recognition and safety to the conscientious objection of military/police personnel who have refused to participate in such atrocities.

At least 19 Myanmar police have fled to India, refusing to take orders from the military junta trying to suppress protests against last month’s coup. In addition, a soldier made a public post on social media showing his refusal to take orders against protesters.

A coalition of more than a hundred NGOs has called for an immediate international arms embargo on Myanmar, as a response to the military coup that took place in early February.

A UN report released in early August said that arms companies from seven countries, including North Korea, Russia, China, Israel and India have supplied weapons to the military in Myanmar.

Since 25th August, over half a million members of Myanmar's Rohyinga community have been driven out from the north Rakhine state, with security forces torching homes, crops and villages in so called “clearance operations” the UN high commissioner for Human Rights has described as “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”

This month we are calling for your support for two prisoners of conscience: Burmese activist Chaw Sandi Tun and Israeli activist Tair Kaminer. Chaw Sandi Tun has been sentenced to six months’ imprisonment in connection with a Facebook post mocking the army. She was arrested in Yangon and transferred to Maubin prison, where she remains behind bars. Support Chaw Sandi via your protest email here.

Tair Kaminer, 19-year-old activist from Israel, has been imprisoned for 20 days for her refusal to join the Israeli military this month. Support Tair via your protest email here.

Myanmar's army has freed 96 children and young people from its armed forces, the United Nations has said. This was the largest single release of child recruits in Myanmar since the country's government entered into an agreement with the UN in 2012 on the issue. The army has released a total of 272 children and youth over the past 18 months, but has not completely stopped its use of children. According to Al Jazeera, no record of verifiable figures exists to prove how many children currently serve in Myanmar's military.