The story as downloadable PDF
The story on Time Out website
Along with his wife and three children, Ruwan has not been able to pay the rent for the past two months. Seven years ago, he and his wife fled war-torn Sri Lanka with their first new-born to Hong Kong, seeking asylum. The Hong Kong office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) recognised his wife and children as refugees – but denied his case because, he says, of his insurgent background. The family rents a flat in Mui Wo, Lantau, for $4,500 a month. Previously, Ruwan’s wife and children, qualified for UNHCR’s assistance, received a monthly allowance of $7,200, including an accommodation subsidy of $1,200 and an additional $1,500 per family member for food and other miscellanies. Yet, even with this allowance, they barely survived. Since then, matters have gotten much, much worse. The UNHCR stopped providing recognised refugees with an accommodation subsidy from January this year, cutting their monthly allowance from $1,500 down to a mere $300. Ruwan’s entire family now survive on a total of $1,200 a month. Although the SAR government has taken the responsibility of providing recognised refugees with food, and an accommodation subsidy of $1,200 (paid directly to the landlord by the government), it is still barely enough to cover the rent. What’s more, to receive groceries, Ruwan’s wife, who suffers from severe back pain, is required to travel several hours to her food supplier in Yau Ma Tei.
“My wife can’t walk for long intervals and she often vomits. Why does she have to suffer? Why am I not allowed to get food for my family?” asks Ruwan. “In Sri Lanka I was tortured physically. Here I’m tortured mentally. They [UNHCR] are splitting my family.” Currently, there are 180 officially recognised refugees residing in Hong Kong and a further 500 UNHCR asylum seekers with their cases under the process of Refugee Status Determination. All are becoming increasingly frustrated by the drastic allowance cut by the UNHCR. “What can I do with only $300 a month? Nothing!” says Aaron, a 28-year-old recognised refugee from Afghanistan. “When I asked why they cut our allowance they said ‘it’s none of your business’.” Aaron was so insulted by the allowance cut, and UNHCR’s attitude, that he simply refused to take the money.
Choosin Ngaotheppitak, head of UNHCR’s Hong Kong and Macau office, tells Time Out that they made this decision because of a budget cut, as well as a new co-operation process with the government. According to Ngaotheppitak, last year the office received an operational budget of US$1 million (HK$7.8m) from the UNHCR headquarters in Geneva, while this year the budget has been cut by a further 30 percent to US$700,000 (HK$5.4m). “As soon as we knew about the budget cut, we began to step up conversations with the local government. Finally they agreed to provide assistance to the recognised refugees,” states Ngaotheppitak. Previously, the government-subsidised assistance programme provided subsidies for food, accommodation and other necessities only to asylum seekers and torture claimants. This year, the government started to include recognised refugees into the programme. “The government assistance for refugees is fundamental and sufficient already,” says UNHCR Ngaotheppitak …
Ngaotheppitak says “The $300 allowance we provide is to cover other miscellanies like phone bills and razors, so that refugees can have an easier life here.” The allowance accounts for 12 percent of UNHCR’s budget this year. According to Ngaotheppitak, the remainder, which amounts to almost HK$4.8m, will be spent on hiring staff to handle newcomers’ registrations in Hong Kong, the process of Refugee Status Determination, the resettlement of recognised refugees, as well as providing recognised refugees with medical help and necessary counselling. “Our mandate is to provide refugees with international protection that ensures they will not be sent back to their home countries – not to provide direct assistance,” he says. Yet the assistance from the government may not be as sufficient as UNHCR believes. Mohamed, 35, is a recognised refugee from Yemen. He used to live in a rented flat in Jordan for $2,500 a month, paid for by his $1,200 accommodation subsidy and $1,500 allowance from UNHCR. But this year he was evicted by his landlord because the accommodation subsidy from the government remains at $1,200, which, combined with the $300 allowance, could not cover the rent. “Nowadays in Hong Kong, where can you find a flat at $1,200?” asks Mohamed, who is temporarily staying at Vision First, a non-governmental organisation supporting refugees and asylum seekers. “As soon as they cut the allowance I lost my home.”
“The human suffering is the consequence of UNHCR when it decided to cut the refugees’ allowance,” says Cosmo Beatson, founder and co-ordinator of Vision First. “It (UNHCR) treats refugees with great disrespect. Just because they are refugees, does that mean they deserve to live a sub-standard life?” Beatson says he noticed that the funding UNHCR raised in Hong Kong had greatly increased in 2010 and last year. “I don’t understand how they claim insufficient budget with ample funding. We sent them requests – but they never answered.” Although he has not yet qualified to receive UNHCR’s allowance, Uta, a 36-year-old asylum seeker from Georgia, also disapproves of UNHCR’s lack of response. “They must be more accountable on how they spend the money. We want to know because we still have hope for UNHCR. We think it exists to help us. But when we are suffering and begging for our lives, they don’t even bother to answer our questions.” Uta tells Time Out that UNHCR has requested that all refugees and asylum seekers don’t speak to the media without its approval: “They threatened to close our files if we don’t do as they require.” For asylum seekers, if their files are closed by UNHCR, they can’t be recognised as refugees in Hong Kong.
According to UNHCR’s Hong Kong fundraising office, it raised a total of HK$27m last year, almost four times more than that of HK$7.7m in 2009. Ngaotheppitak explains that all funding which the Hong Kong office raised went to UNHCR’s headquarters, unless donors required specifically that their donations be used to help refugees in certain regions, in which case the donations would be transferred directly to the required regions. “Few donors required their donations to stay in Hong Kong,” Ngaotheppitak specifically tells Time Out. “There were none last year.” Ngaotheppitak says the UNHCR headquarters plans and allocates budgets to different offices across the world; the amount of budgets will be decided according to the levels of emergency in different regions: “Many crises happened last year. Although the funding raised in Hong Kong had increased significantly, the total global funding was still not enough. The bulk of funding was distributed to regions that needed money the most, like Africa, Pakistan, Somalia and Libya. Hong Kong is a stronger community and the government has been supportive to the refugees.”
Ngaotheppitak’s view is not shared by human rights lawyer Mark Daly. “The allowance cut is definitely unreasonable,” says Daly. “UNHCR is shifting its responsibility on to the government-sponsored programme which is nowhere near adequate to meet international standards.” While Daly thinks UNHCR should take a more active role on behalf of the refugees in its co-operative partnership with the Hong Kong government – and urge the government to create a fairer and more complete system for refugees and asylum seekers – he believes the focus of criticism should be on the government since it doesn’t allow refugees and asylum seekers to work in the city. “Refugees and asylum seekers lost important sources to survive by not being able to work here,” says Daly. “They can’t live by themselves, which is the major cause of all problems. A lot of other countries allow refugees and asylum seekers to work.” “We are allowed to stay. We are allowed to beg. But we are not allowed to work,” says Uta. “I don’t dream that I have the right to work here – but I want to at least learn some skills and get some certificates so I can have more opportunities when I’m resettled. Yet we are not allowed.” For protection, all names of refugees have been changed.
Why is there no comment from the government in this article? The UNHCR claims the HK government is expanding its role; is it? And I have no sympathy for the refugee who doesn’t take $300 because it’s “insulting”…
I will rather blame those who have been given the mandate to handle torture cases in Hong Kong the so called professionals. this website tells alot:
No Hong Kong is not celebrated for its protection of asylum seekers and refugees….Come on, if the government can afford to give us all a handout of $6000, they can do better than this.
What an awful situation! Who, indeed, is to be blamed? I suspect that the government is paying no attention…
For an asylum system to endure, it must make good decisions in line with international standards, and it must do so efficiently. In this age of migration, those seeking a way into more desirable economic situations will always take advantage of any opportunity given – such as those created through the haphazard, half-hearted procedures/assistance for CAT in HK. If there is political will, it is not difficult to implement effective asylum-related systems, particularly with HK’s civil servants, rule of law, and geography. There are ways to address the domestic helper issue, most fundamentally by simply ensuring that accurate decisions are reached in a timely manner. If the period of (perceived) abuse is reduced to 3 months total, and there’s an understanding that failed applicants are unlikely to be allowed to return, CAT application will be less attractive, and each claimant less costly. What seems to be the problem is that no one on gov’t side actually seems to take this issue seriously — they’re just playing CYA with each new controversy or court decision. HK is a signatory to CAT, and one would hope they would share the principles in CAT, including that of non-refoulement. But anyone who has followed this will see that the last thing the administration seems interested in is actually identifying people in need, and ensuring that they are protected. Until the day comes when Hong Kong decides to act like a grown-up territory and stand behind its international commitment in a meaningful way, we’ll just be going from one crisis to another – moving in the right direction, though much more slowly than should be the case. Comprehensive legislation, positive implementation with protection as the GOAL for Hong Kong rather than the THREAT, and smart coordination with HK’s labor situation are places to look to fix CAT. The Indonesian domestic helper situation is not an accident – it results from the contract structure (and practice) enforced by Indo gov’t regulation/collusion with manpower brokers, supported by HK admin. There are extremely few options available to a woman who has problems as a domestic helper – and if an asylum system has an open window and there are no other real options (except going home to increased debts, family disappointment, threats from the brokers, etc), of course these young women will go for it – I certainly would, if I was in their shoes! With 130,000 Indonesian helpers in Hong Kong (a territory that claims it is too small to provide asylum to even a handful of refugees…), and frequent problems in the workplace, getting rid of the Indonesian consulate/broker mafia should be well up the agenda by now if the human rights of these women are to be respected. If Hong Kong actually does care about an issue, that issue will be solved. The question is whether there is real commitment – the answer doesn’t look very good so far.
So lets say Mark (lawyer Daly of Barnes & Daly) gets his way and refugees can work – but can`t find jobs because can`t read, write or speak Chinese. So let’s say, they go on social welfare which is about $1,300, plus some food money, lets say another $1,000 odd, FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY, out of which rent has to be paid (and let`s not forget that there is at least 2 year waiting list for a public housing unit), food bought, school costs covered! ummmmm – doesn`t seem that good a deal to me.
Why not get the SAR government and UNHCR to push countries that have accepted refugees to hurry up and re-settle them? And for goodness sake’s if you are going to give money to the UNHCR make sure you let them know the money is for Hong Kong!