More than 450 Rohingya women and girls have reportedly been forcibly recruited by Myanmar’s Arakan Army (AA) across Rakhine State. While the figure has not been independently verified, the allegation reflects a wider and increasingly documented pattern in which conflict, poverty, statelessness and coercive control leave Rohingya civilians with few safe choices.

A recruitment system shaped by fear

Reports from Rakhine State indicate that more than 450 Rohingya women and girls may have been forcibly recruited in AA-controlled areas, including Maungdaw, Buthidaung, Rathedaung, Minbya and Thandwe. Community sources allege that AA representatives have imposed recruitment demands on households and that women may be taken when adult men are absent.

The claim requires careful wording. The reported number is not independently verified, and neither the exact ages of those recruited nor the tasks assigned to them are known. 

“The reported figure could not be independently verified”

— Rohingya Khobor. This limitation matters because reporting from war zones, particularly where Rohingya communities have limited movement and outside monitors face restricted access, often depends on survivor accounts, local contacts and village-level networks.

However, lack of independent verification should not become an excuse to disregard the allegation. It should instead increase pressure for impartial investigation, unimpeded humanitarian access and protection for witnesses. In places where civilians fear arrest, retaliation, extortion or recruitment, the lack of complete information can itself show the effects of coercive control.

The alleged household quota system is especially troubling. Rather than allowing recruitment to be a voluntary choice, the reported practice turns families into units of military obligation. If a household cannot provide a man, it may reportedly be required to surrender a woman or girl. This raises a serious Human Rights concern because it strips civilians of agency and puts gender at the centre of wartime coercion.

When poverty decides who is taken

The alleged recruitment of Rohingya women cannot be separated from its economic dimension. Reports suggest that wealthier households may sometimes avoid recruitment demands through payments, while poorer families that cannot afford exemptions face a greater risk of losing relatives to armed authorities. In this environment, money does not merely provide comfort; it can decide who stays safe and who is exposed to danger.

A February 2026 report from Buthidaung alleged that an AA recruitment team demanded five men and 10 girls from Maung Nyo Ma Phyu Taung village. A resident summarised the fear within the community: 

“There are almost no young men left in our village… Now they are asking for our daughters”

— Rohingya resident quoted by Rohingya Khobor.

The same report alleged that households were asked to pay 2.5 million Myanmar kyat to exempt a girl and 2 million Myanmar kyat to exempt a man. For families already living with displacement, restricted movement, food insecurity and damaged livelihoods, these are not ordinary fines. They are potentially devastating sums.

This produces the brutal economics of wartime coercion. Households with cash may be able to negotiate survival, purchase exemptions or relocate. Those without resources may be forced to pay in another currency: their labour, freedom or the safety of their daughters. Poverty becomes a weapon, enabling armed power to convert civilian desperation into military capacity.

Fortify Rights found a comparable pattern in its October 2025 investigation into AA practices in Rakhine. The group interviewed 21 survivors and witnesses from Rohingya, Hindu and Chakma communities who described forced labour, unlawful recruitment, detention, threats and financial penalties.

“Rohingya, Hindu, and other minorities in Rakhine State are being exploited and forced to work in dangerous conditions wholly against their will”

— Yap Lay Sheng, Senior Human Rights Specialist at Fortify Rights.

One person described an alleged 50,000-kyat daily fine for failing to report for compulsory work. Another reportedly paid more than 1 million kyat to avoid forced labour before the risk of detention made refusal impossible. These accounts show how coercion can operate not only through physical force but also through punitive economic pressure.

Forced labour and military control

The reported recruitment of women and girls must be considered alongside existing allegations of forced labour in AA-held areas. Fortify Rights found that civilians from ethnic and religious minorities were allegedly compelled to carry ammunition, dig trenches, repair bunkers, build military facilities, transport food, clear land, maintain roads and provide other unpaid labour connected to wartime operations.

“Survivors described being forced at gunpoint to porter ammunition, build fortifications, and perform unpaid labor for months under the threat of beatings, detention, and execution”

— Fortify Rights.

These duties may be classified as labour, but they are often directly tied to military activity. A civilian forced to carry ammunition or build a bunker close to a battlefield faces risks comparable to those faced by combatants, despite never having chosen to join the conflict. This is why forced labour in a war zone is not simply an employment abuse. It can amount to a grave violation of international humanitarian law.

Fortify Rights documented an estimate from a Rohingya administrator in Buthidaung that more than 1,000 men from Nga Yant Chaung village had reported for labour. It also recorded an account involving approximately 120 young people who received 10 days of training before being assigned to AA positions for unpaid support work.

These findings do not independently establish that exactly 450 women and girls have been forcibly recruited. But they provide crucial context: credible Human Rights reporting has already identified a broader pattern of forced civilian labour and coercive recruitment within the same conflict environment. The latest allegations should therefore be investigated urgently instead of treated as implausible or isolated.

Rohingya women face distinct risks

Women and girls experience wartime coercion differently from men. When armed groups impose recruitment demands on villages, women may be exposed not only to forced labour or military duties but also to heightened risks of harassment, sexual violence, intimidation, forced separation from relatives and restrictions on religious or cultural expression.

The latest accounts suggest that some families have fled their homes because leaving appeared to be the only way to protect female relatives. Such displacement reflects the social destruction caused by recruitment pressure. Families are forced to choose between flight and submission, while neither option guarantees safety.

Human Rights Watch has documented other serious allegations against the AA involving Rohingya civilians. Its May 2026 report on the May 2, 2024 massacre in Hoyyar Siri said more than 170 Rohingya villagers were killed or disappeared, including at least 90 children. Witnesses also described the abduction of Rohingya women and girls.

“Several witnesses reported that fighters abducted Rohingya women and girls from the village” — Human Rights Watch.

The AA’s political wing, the United League of Arakan, has rejected allegations of civilian abuses and maintained that 

“[it] has strictly adhered to the international laws of war and the Geneva Conventions”

— United League of Arakan. It has also denied exploiting Rohingya civilians through forced labour, portraying some reported activities as physical exercise for detainees.

But public assurances cannot replace accountability. The essential questions are whether civilians can refuse recruitment without punishment, whether detainees can leave freely, whether independent investigators can reach affected communities, and whether survivors have a genuine route to justice. Human Rights standards demand transparent inquiry, survivor protection and meaningful consequences for those responsible.

Statelessness and State Policy

The Rohingya crisis has deep roots in Myanmar’s State Policy. Most Rohingya have effectively been rendered stateless through Myanmar’s discriminatory citizenship framework, particularly the 1982 Citizenship Law. This system has produced decades of restrictions on movement, education, employment, healthcare, marriage, land rights and access to justice.

Statelessness makes coercive recruitment easier. People without citizenship cannot easily seek institutional protection, travel safely to find work, escape recruitment pressure or challenge armed authorities. They cannot depend on police, courts or local officials to protect them. Their vulnerability is embedded within the political order itself.

An estimated 500,000 to 600,000 Rohingya remain in Myanmar, primarily in Rakhine State, while up to 145,000 live in displacement camps. Around 400,000 Rohingya were estimated to be living in Rakhine as of June 2025, mostly in AA-controlled territory.

More than 1 million Rohingya refugees are in Bangladesh after repeated waves of persecution and conflict. By January 2026, at least 150,000 additional Rohingya had reportedly fled to Bangladesh amid renewed violence. Human Rights Watch also reported that child malnutrition in refugee camps rose by 27 percent in late 2025 compared with the preceding year, while at least 11 health centres closed because of funding shortages.

These conditions mean that escape is not a straightforward answer. Those who remain in Myanmar may face discrimination, coercion and war. Those who flee may enter overcrowded refugee camps suffering from shrinking humanitarian support and insecure legal status. Any State Policy that treats refugee return as a solution while the causes of persecution remain unresolved is not a protection policy; it is an evasion of responsibility.

Accountability must include every armed actor

Rohingya civilians remain exposed to abuses by several forces. Myanmar’s military junta has a longstanding record of mass atrocities against the Rohingya and has also been accused of forced recruitment, forced labour and using civilians as human shields. Rohingya armed groups, including ARSA and the RSO, have likewise been accused of unlawfully recruiting Rohingya men and boys in Myanmar and Bangladesh.

This does not dilute responsibility for AA abuses. It strengthens the case for a consistent Human Rights approach. Civilians should not be required to prove which armed actor is worse before their own suffering is recognised. The same standards must apply to the junta, the AA and Rohingya armed groups: recruitment must be voluntary, children must never be recruited, forced labour must end, and violations must be independently investigated.

“The Myanmar junta and Rohingya armed groups have unlawfully conscripted Rohingya in Bangladesh and Myanmar… [while] the Arakan Army… also uses forced recruitment”

— Amnesty International.

This is the core of Rakhine’s protection crisis. An already persecuted minority has become a source of labour, recruits and strategic leverage for armed groups pursuing separate military objectives. Their status as civilians has been weakened by war, poverty and a system that has denied them citizenship.

“The Arakan Army must immediately end forced labor and unlawful recruitment, and release all civilians detained and forced to work”

— Fortify Rights.

Human Rights Watch has called for the AA to halt child recruitment, end forced civilian recruitment for combat-related functions, lift restrictions on movement and humanitarian aid, and cooperate with independent investigations. Such demands should apply alongside sustained pressure on the junta and all armed groups implicated in violations.

A demand for protection, not rhetoric

The reported recruitment of more than 450 Rohingya women and girls may not yet be independently verified, but it emerges from an environment where coercive labour, military exploitation and ethnic discrimination are already widely documented. That context makes indifference dangerous.

The immediate priority is independent access to affected villages and confidential interviews with survivors, families and witnesses. Investigators need to establish who was recruited, whether any were children, whether women were assigned to combat or support roles, whether payment demands were imposed, and whether those who refused faced detention, violence or other punishment.

International donors, ASEAN, China, India and other states with influence in Myanmar should demand civilian protection and unrestricted humanitarian access. The International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism for Myanmar should receive sustained support to preserve evidence of alleged crimes by all sides.

Rohingya women should not be forced to carry the cost of a war they did not choose. When a family’s ability to protect its daughters depends on cash it does not possess, conflict becomes more than violence—it becomes an economy built on vulnerability. Until statelessness, poverty and armed impunity are confronted together, Rohingya women will remain among the first to pay its price.