Young men collapsing in dismay and others raising their arms in celebration were among the scenes Thailand witnessed at the military conscription draw this month.
The Southeast Asian nation mandates conscription for all men above 21 and whoever doesn’t volunteer must participate in an annual conscription lottery held ahead of the Songkran New Year festival in April.
Conscription has gained popularity since last year’s repeated border clashes with Cambodia left dozens of soldiers and civilians dead on both sides. Fighting was halted by a ceasefire that has held since December, although tensions have continued to simmer around stretches of the disputed 800km frontier.
Across the country, young men gathered in anticipation, waiting to be called by the Royal Thai Army to learn whether they would be conscripted through a lottery system that some have compared to the reaping ritual in The Hunger Games films.
One by one, they stepped forward to pick a card from a jar placed before them. A black card means exemption from military service, a red one confirms conscription.
The theatricality of the military lottery, coupled with hysterical reactions from the young men involved, has seen the process receive huge attention on social media, with other comparisons drawn made to reality television.
The participants were called to pick a card and hand it over to a military official who would then read the results into the mic. TikTok and Instagram videos showed some men jumping up and down in relief after drawing a black card while others slumped into the arms of military personnel in dismay or shouted in frustration. A man was seen twerking at the prospect of not having to join the military.
Chakrit Kaewkum, 21, a part-time supermarket worker, said he was “ok with either outcome”. “I leave it to fate. It’s not that difficult as it’s only two years,” he told the AFP news agency before drawing red.
His mother Sawang Jaithum said: “For a man in Thailand, I think it’s honourable.”
All eligible men are required to report to conscription centres, with failure to appear on registration day punishable by up to three years in prison.
Before taking part in the lottery, the men must pass a physical examination and meet the minimum height requirement of 160cm.
In recent years, there have been reports of young men deliberately gaining weight in a bid to secure exemption from service.
A viral TikTok video posted on 3 April showed a man being turned away after failing the body mass index threshold.
The unidentified man told an officer he had drunk two cups of bubble tea every day for three months, which added 30kg to his weight, pushing his body mass index above 35, The Bangkok Post reported.
The exemption is also extended to transgender women. Some of those reporting for the draft had undergone gender reassignment surgery but were still listed as male on official records.
They had to obtain an exemption letter at the conscription centre to be excused from military service.
A total of 27,698 men volunteered for active military service this year, accounting for 44 per cent of those called up, according to Thai PBS World. This was an increase of 1,508 from the previous year’s toll.
The rise in the number of conscripts comes amid a sense of rising nationalism following last year’s clashes with Cambodia as well as limited job prospects.
Conscripts receive a monthly salary of 11,000baht or £253, slightly above Thailand’s minimum wage, along with housing, meals and health care.
“There’s no real certainty of being sent to war,” Chawanakorn Manyum, 22, told Bloomberg News. “But there’s a guarantee of income.”
The opposition People’s Party has called for abolishing the controversial draft as critics have argued that two years in the military can derail early careers.
Human rights groups have documented cases of young men allegedly killed by their peers or put through brutal sexual assault and hazing rituals. Amnesty International in 2020 reported rampant sexual harassment, beatings and abuse in the military, targeting those who identified as gay.
The report alleged that gay conscripts were repeatedly singled out and coerced into entertaining and massaging commanders, escalating to rape.
