Myanmar’s Youth Leaders Fear Conscription Law
Voice of America
FILE - People wait in line to enter the Thai Embassy for visas in Yangon, Myanmar, on Feb. 20, 2024. Crowds of people have thronged to get passports and visas to neighboring Thailand since the government activated a law making 14 million young people subject to conscription. Robert Minn, a youth activist for Milk Tea Alliance-Friends of Myanmar, was recently stopped at a checkpoint in Yangon, Myanmar, and asked to join the army. He was given a military conscription law leaflet like this one.
Myanmar’s youth leaders are determined to avoid the military’s conscription law that could see them fight against the very resistance they are part of.
FILE - Orphans and children separated from their parents in Kadugli gather to eat boiled leaves at an IDP Camp within the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) controlled area in Boram County, Nuba Mountains, South Kordofan, June 22, 2024. FILE - A WFP worker stands next to a truck carrying aid from Port Sudan to Darfur and other famine-stricken parts of Sudan, Nov. 12, 2024. (WFP/Abubakar Garelnabei/Handout via Reuters)
FILE - Students attend a class on media literacy at the Hiidenkiven Koulu school on November 19, 2024 in Helsinki, Finland. In Finland -- a country consistently ranked Europe's most media literate -- the skills needed to spot online hoaxes are on the school curriculum, amidst a boom of mis- and disinformation campaigns.
FILE - Pope Francis opens the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Dec. 8, 2015. FILE - Pope Francis pushes open the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica, formally launching the Holy Year of Mercy, at the Vatican, Dec. 8, 2015. FILE - Pope Francis walks inside the Paliano detention center, south of Rome, April 13, 2017.