Women facing greater employment, education losses amid Arakan conflict

By Admin 10 Oct 2025

DMG Newsroom

10 October 2025, Mrauk-U
 
In conflict-torn Arakan State, women are losing out on employment, education, and other vocational training opportunities compared with men, according to a recent report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
 
Up to 25 percent of women across the country are missing out on opportunities in employment, education, or vocational training, according to the UNDP report released on October 9.

“Seventeen percent of youth are not in employment, education, or training (NEET), rising to one in four among women,” said the report. 
 
The report showed Kayah State with the highest overall NEET rate at 42.2 percent, followed by Arakan State at 32.4 percent.
 
“Before the fighting, I went to university and when the school closed, I went to work in Yangon. Now that the fighting is over, my education has been cut short and I can’t go to work because the roads are blocked,” said a 20-year-old woman from Buthidaung Township. “When businesses hire people, they only hire men. Now I have no income at all. I want to work to earn at least enough to cover my expenses.”
 
According to an earlier UNDP report, nearly 4 million Myanmar youth are unemployed, with more than 54 percent of youth unemployed in Kayah State and over 43 percent of Arakan State youth unemployed.
 
“When it comes to work, men get more opportunities,” said Ma Hsan Nwe, an internally displaced person (IDP) from Kyauktaw Township. “Businesses don’t want to hire women. Even those who could hire women to carry goods don’t hire women, they only hire men. This kind of discrimination makes opportunities for women very limited, especially when everyone is unemployed.”
 
Like the local population, IDPs face many challenges in terms of livelihoods, and especially IDP women, who face multiple challenges due to the lack of employment opportunities. Similarly, the UNDP reports that young women are more than twice as likely to be excluded from the labour market than men.
 
Similarly, the UNDP report states that young women face greater hardships, and earn 22 percent less income than men on average.
 
The UNDP report also urges the need to implement vocational training for women in Arakan State.
 
“There are no job opportunities in Arakan State. Even the jobs that do exist are mostly geared toward men,” a young Arakanese man said. “Women need to be given equal opportunities with men. Relevant officials need to implement the creation of job opportunities.”
 
Women are calling for the creation of job opportunities and the creation of markets through vocational training in Arakan State, where jobs are scarce and unemployment rates are rising sharply.