'I'm a Mandalay girl': teenage soldier fights on Myanmar's front lines

A female member of the Mandalay People's Defense Forces repairing and cleaning a weapon at their base camp in the forest near Namhsan in Myanmar's northern Shan State. - AFP

SHAN STATE, Myanmar:: An 18-year-old recruit in one of Myanmar's pro-democracy fighting units prepares to launch a drone strike on junta troops, driven by anger and her mother's call for revolution.

Moe Moe is one of hundreds of women training, living and fighting alongside men in the "People's Defence Forces", upending gender norms in the mostly Buddhist country.