ASEAN Beat | Society | Southeast Asia

‘Like a Startled Crow’: The Precarious Life of Women Amid Myanmar’s Polycrisis

For many women in Myanmar, conjoined economic and security crises mean never being able to let their guard down and never being able to think more than “one day at a time.”

Two women chat while swinging in a hammock inside Myanmar. Hundreds of people, mainly women and children, live in this small village near the Moei River.

Myanmar is grappling with an unprecedented “polycrisis” that has shaped every aspect of life over the past four years. The 2021 military coup has been compounded by entrenched ethnic conflict, economic disruption, and environmental crisis in ways that impinge daily on the rights and freedoms of Myanmar’s people, eroding their capacity to anticipate a more hopeful future. 

In the past 12 months, we have worked with a group of 24 grassroots women researchers from across the country to document the gendered impacts of Myanmar’s polycrisis. The multiplying nature of the challenges we describe below prompted one of our project’s interlocutors to compare her existence to that of a “startled crow”: never able to let her guard down, never able to think more than “one day at a time,” and always alert to risk. 

The post-coup regime seeks to control the country through military force, an agenda that relies on detention and forced conscription. As of September 2025, “at least 29,560 people have been arrested on political grounds and over 22,000 remain in detention,” including 4,234 women, some of whom have been subjected to gendered assault such as strip searches by prison authorities.

The military also uses forced conscription tactics to boost its numbers and is increasingly targeting women to bolster its numbers. Our researchers have found that in many areas local officials are conducting conscription procedures and including the names of married women and female students who have previously been exempt or able to postpone recruitment.

Our project interlocutors further observed how forced conscription put increased pressures on women who are forced to look for paid work to fill household earning gaps, as male family members stay within the domicile to evade military surveillance.

Accessing employment is far from straightforward, however. Female government employees like nurses and teachers who took part in the Civil Disobedience Movement in opposition to the military takeover in 2021 have subsequently lost work. Due to mandatory police checks, they are often denied employment elsewhere.

Myanmar’s garment industry, formerly a key source of employment for women, is also constrained because many producers have exited the country. In these conditions, resorting to transactional sex has reportedly become a survival strategy for those who have few other earning opportunities 

Whatever money is earned doesn’t stretch as far as it used to, either. The polycrisis in Myanmar is causing a shortage of essential goods and services, which drives up prices. The military regime compounds the problem by seeking to bolster its coffers applying fees, tariffs, and sometimes bribes that further inflate everyday transactions. Food inflation reached 29.5 percent on average across the country in 2025. In states impacted by conflict, or in the vicinity of the Sagaing Earthquake, the price of essential food items jumped by between 50 and 80 percent. 

Our research found that, to make ends meet, women skip meals or reduce what they can share with dependents. In response to questions about managing these economic challenges one woman answered: “It’s less about the economic situation, and more that we are just working to avoid starvation. We don’t have extra money. More than the big term ‘economy,’ we just work to avoid hunger.” 

Our research team uncovered highly concerning evidence of widespread gender-based violence, fueled by ongoing conflict, experiences of displacement, and general levels of political oppression. Interviewees alleged that the military forces use rape, gang rape, torture, abduction and forced marriage as forms of intimidation that target female relatives of resistance fighters.

The impetus to flee conflict can intensify the risk of gender-based violence. As one interviewee observed, “There is no safety in travel. I see domestic violence and sexual harassment in [this kind of] environment.” This is particularly so within internally displace people (IDP) camps, where instances of rape, gang rape, and sexual assault have become prolific. 

UNHCR data for Myanmar indicates a staggering 3.7 million IDPs, many thousands of whom are now living in camps. Some IDPs fled armed conflict areas; others were displaced by the 2024 Sagaing Earthquake. Whatever the cause of displacement,  concern about the security of living spaces is paramount.

One woman described the every-day precarity of shelter in these camps, which amounts to a small “tarpaulin hut” that “someone could come and slash … open with just a thin blade.” 

Another participant described the mental challenge of the IDP camp environment, stating “I don’t feel mentally secure, and I don’t feel physically secure either. Right now, we are … surviving in a state of constant fear.”

To make matters worse, impunity surrounds these incidents. Women tend to fear reporting gender violence and assaults to state authorities because they are generally viewed as perpetrators of violence against women more than as protectors.

Amid these bleak assessments, however, we have also uncovered evidence of women collaborating to provide much needed social and gender violence services, empowerment initiatives and other sorts of community support. Gender advocacy events and campaigns to advance women’s standing have also been facilitated through internet and smartphone technologies.  

At the national level, a coalition of 40 women’s rights and LGBTQIA+ organizations released recommendations on March 20, 2025, that urged national and international political actors to strengthen gender-responsive governance, to ensure accountability for conflict-related sexual violence, and promote women’s participation in decision-making.

This International Women’s Day, their calls should not go unheeded. It is important for us to ask why the “existential” challenges that women endure in Myanmar’s polycrisis environment have not generated more international attention. Our collective project, we hope, plays a small part in addressing this problem. 

You can read the full report here.

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Myanmar is grappling with an unprecedented “polycrisis” that has shaped every aspect of life over the past four years. The 2021 military coup has been compounded by entrenched ethnic conflict, economic disruption, and environmental crisis in ways that impinge daily on the rights and freedoms of Myanmar’s people, eroding their capacity to anticipate a more hopeful future. 

In the past 12 months, we have worked with a group of 24 grassroots women researchers from across the country to document the gendered impacts of Myanmar’s polycrisis. The multiplying nature of the challenges we describe below prompted one of our project’s interlocutors to compare her existence to that of a “startled crow”: never able to let her guard down, never able to think more than “one day at a time,” and always alert to risk. 

The post-coup regime seeks to control the country through military force, an agenda that relies on detention and forced conscription. As of September 2025, “at least 29,560 people have been arrested on political grounds and over 22,000 remain in detention,” including 4,234 women, some of whom have been subjected to gendered assault such as strip searches by prison authorities.

The military also uses forced conscription tactics to boost its numbers and is increasingly targeting women to bolster its numbers. Our researchers have found that in many areas local officials are conducting conscription procedures and including the names of married women and female students who have previously been exempt or able to postpone recruitment.

Our project interlocutors further observed how forced conscription put increased pressures on women who are forced to look for paid work to fill household earning gaps, as male family members stay within the domicile to evade military surveillance.

Accessing employment is far from straightforward, however. Female government employees like nurses and teachers who took part in the Civil Disobedience Movement in opposition to the military takeover in 2021 have subsequently lost work. Due to mandatory police checks, they are often denied employment elsewhere.

Myanmar’s garment industry, formerly a key source of employment for women, is also constrained because many producers have exited the country. In these conditions, resorting to transactional sex has reportedly become a survival strategy for those who have few other earning opportunities 

Whatever money is earned doesn’t stretch as far as it used to, either. The polycrisis in Myanmar is causing a shortage of essential goods and services, which drives up prices. The military regime compounds the problem by seeking to bolster its coffers applying fees, tariffs, and sometimes bribes that further inflate everyday transactions. Food inflation reached 29.5 percent on average across the country in 2025. In states impacted by conflict, or in the vicinity of the Sagaing Earthquake, the price of essential food items jumped by between 50 and 80 percent. 

Our research found that, to make ends meet, women skip meals or reduce what they can share with dependents. In response to questions about managing these economic challenges one woman answered: “It’s less about the economic situation, and more that we are just working to avoid starvation. We don’t have extra money. More than the big term ‘economy,’ we just work to avoid hunger.” 

Our research team uncovered highly concerning evidence of widespread gender-based violence, fueled by ongoing conflict, experiences of displacement, and general levels of political oppression. Interviewees alleged that the military forces use rape, gang rape, torture, abduction and forced marriage as forms of intimidation that target female relatives of resistance fighters.

The impetus to flee conflict can intensify the risk of gender-based violence. As one interviewee observed, “There is no safety in travel. I see domestic violence and sexual harassment in [this kind of] environment.” This is particularly so within internally displace people (IDP) camps, where instances of rape, gang rape, and sexual assault have become prolific. 

UNHCR data for Myanmar indicates a staggering 3.7 million IDPs, many thousands of whom are now living in camps. Some IDPs fled armed conflict areas; others were displaced by the 2024 Sagaing Earthquake. Whatever the cause of displacement,  concern about the security of living spaces is paramount.

One woman described the every-day precarity of shelter in these camps, which amounts to a small “tarpaulin hut” that “someone could come and slash … open with just a thin blade.” 

Another participant described the mental challenge of the IDP camp environment, stating “I don’t feel mentally secure, and I don’t feel physically secure either. Right now, we are … surviving in a state of constant fear.”

To make matters worse, impunity surrounds these incidents. Women tend to fear reporting gender violence and assaults to state authorities because they are generally viewed as perpetrators of violence against women more than as protectors.

Amid these bleak assessments, however, we have also uncovered evidence of women collaborating to provide much needed social and gender violence services, empowerment initiatives and other sorts of community support. Gender advocacy events and campaigns to advance women’s standing have also been facilitated through internet and smartphone technologies.  

At the national level, a coalition of 40 women’s rights and LGBTQIA+ organizations released recommendations on March 20, 2025, that urged national and international political actors to strengthen gender-responsive governance, to ensure accountability for conflict-related sexual violence, and promote women’s participation in decision-making.

This International Women’s Day, their calls should not go unheeded. It is important for us to ask why the “existential” challenges that women endure in Myanmar’s polycrisis environment have not generated more international attention. Our collective project, we hope, plays a small part in addressing this problem. 

You can read the full report here.

P.P.K. Mynt is an affiliate researcher at the School of Political Science and International Studies at The University of Queensland.

K. Thazin is an affiliate researcher at the School of Political Science and International Studies at The University of Queensland.

Dr. Melissa Johnston is a senior lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies at the School of Political Science and International Studies at The University of Queensland.

Dr. Nicole George is an associate professor in Peace and Conflict Studies at the School of Political Science and International Studies at The University of Queensland.

Lal Ram Muani is an affiliate researcher at the School of Political Science and International Studies at The University of Queensland.

Myanmar gender-based violence

Myanmar women's rights

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