Beacon of Hope
Aug 15th, 2011 | Advocacy | Comment
Gordon Mathews writes in SCMP, Aug 13, 2011
Many people in Hong Kong regard Chungking Mansions with fear. Indeed, several weeks ago a columnist in this newspaper echoed the call often heard in the early 1990s that Chungking Mansions should be torn down. But the building has significantly changed from what it was 20 years ago. At that time, the building really was a hazard, with a Danish tourist dying in a fire in 1988, a week-long electrical blackout in 1993, and South Asian gangs demanding protection money from businesses.
Today, the building is quite different. This is largely because the Incorporated Owners of Chungking Mansions have, over the years, made it more salubrious, putting in new elevators and CCTV cameras, as well as guards and fire alarms. Crime rates are lower than in many other buildings in Hong Kong, police say, and although the risk can never be discounted, no one has died from a fire in the past two decades. I stayed in Chungking Mansions one or two nights a week from 2006 to 2010 for my research as an anthropologist. I found that the biggest risk I faced was not from fire or crime in Chungking Mansions, but rather that of being run over by a taxi on Nathan Road. This is one reason Chungking Mansions should not be feared by people in Hong Kong: it is a safe place. But there is a deeper, more important reason the building should not be feared but celebrated. The people in Chungking Mansions and the people in Hong Kong at large mirror each other in their values. I have often observed (using the down-to-earth ethnic designations I sometimes hear in Chungking Mansions) the “yellow” and “white” people emerging from upscale bars and restaurants on Nathan Road late on Friday and Saturday evenings and passing by the “brown” and “black” people sitting outside Chungking Mansions: the two groups eye each other with mutual incomprehension.
But, if they were to talk, a remarkable parallel might become apparent. Just as many people in Hong Kong escaped from mainland China decades ago in search of a better life in Hong Kong, creating over the past 50 years a city that is wealthy, and no longer of the developing world but of the developed world, so, too, the people in Chungking Mansions. Families in India, Pakistan and Africa have often pooled their money to send a family member overseas to Chungking Mansions to work in a phone stall or a guesthouse, or to buy goods to carry home to make a profit and begin the arduous climb towards affluence. The Hongkongers of 40 years ago and these South Asians and Africans today share the same dream: that of becoming middle class.
When I have travelled to Kathmandu, Calcutta and Kampala, and mentioned Hong Kong, the response I have heard is, “Chungking Mansions!” The building serves as a beacon of hope through much of the developing world. I estimate, based on my surreptitious surveys of phone stalls in Chungking Mansions and their sales, that 20 per cent of mobile phones now used in sub-Saharan Africa have passed through the building. Chungking Mansions is a major global hub of what I term “low-end globalisation”, globalisation involving not transnational corporations with their billion-dollar budgets and batteries of lawyers, but that of African traders returning to their homelands clutching luggage filled with a few hundred phones, of South Asian temporary workers bringing home to their family a few thousand dollars of needed money and extraordinary tales, of asylum seekers wondering when, if ever, they can go home, and of travellers from across the globe closely counting their pennies and staying in the one place in Hong Kong that they can afford. I have counted, from guesthouse logs, 129 different nationalities in Chungking Mansions; in terms of cross-cultural interactions, Chungking Mansions is, I conjecture, the single most globalised building on earth. It is a place in which globalisation is largely peaceful. As a Pakistani said to me about Indians: “I do not like them. But I am here to make money, as they are here to make money. We cannot afford to fight.” Yes, there are counterfeit goods for sale; yes, there are illegal workers; but, all in all, the building is a paragon of bourgeois capitalism.
Hong Kong people should be proud, rather than afraid, of this building. Fortunately, this is already happening, to a degree. I recently saw Hong Kong secondary school teachers taking their young students there to ask denizens of Chungking Mansions such questions as “Where are you from?”, “What do you eat for breakfast/lunch/dinner in your country?” And I have observed non-governmental organisations taking Hong Kong Chinese on tours of the building and sharing meals with African and South Asian traders and asylum seekers. Hong Kong people may be gradually coming to understand the value of Chungking Mansions, as a place where the world’s ethnicities and nationalities can work together peacefully to try to make a better life for themselves. Chungking Mansions represents a site where globalisation really works. In a world full of bloody ethnic and religious struggles, the rest of us have much we can learn from it.
[Gordon Mathews is an anthropologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His book Ghetto at the Center of the World, now available in Hong Kong bookstores, discusses Chungking Mansions in a global perspective]
AHRC video on torture in South East Asia
Aug 15th, 2011 | Advocacy | Comment
Six months homeless in Hong Kong
Aug 14th, 2011 | Advocacy | Comment
August 2011 marks a milestone for Vision First. Considering the hardship refugees face in Hong Kong, struggling for housing is the *number one* difficulty, one which sadly is worsening due to a host of factors. Finding an affordable home is the greatest challenge for any renting family, so it’s easy to imagine the hurdles faced by destitute refugees, without jobs and deposit money. With the government clamping down on illegal structures, roof-top dwellings and unauthorized farmland huts, a difficult situation is becoming a terrible one. Homelessness will spread rapidly among those least able to cope.
When planning our Refugee Shelter, we envisioned a safe haven for new arrivals, for asylum-seekers who’d run out of cash for guesthouses and didn’t have friends do welcome. New arrivals were the target users, but instead we uncovered homelessness among long-time refugees. There’s one who arrived in 2005 and suddenly found himself evicted into the street by a hysterical landlord demanding a sudden 50% rent increase. There’s a member who’s Tokwawan home burnt down. The fire didn’t start in his room, but in the meter box and it was a miracle nobody died. Made homeless overnight, all he owned was reduced to ashes, but for the clothes he was wearing. Misfortune often targets those least prepared to bear another blow. This morning we heard about a Pakistani family of five who is being evicted from their rooftop hut in Mataukok and are desperate for assistance. Sadly our shelter is for men only so another solution is needed. As we ponder these precarious circumstances, please read this email a member sent last week, sharing the miserable experience he had being SIX MONTH HOMELESS in Hong Kong:
____________________________________________________________________________
I think what Vision First is doing with the shelter is fantastic – congratulations! If only there was such a safe place when I arrived in Hong Kong and had to live in the streets and on the beach for six months. I arrived in June 2007 and rented a guestroom in Chung King Mansion with the little money I had left. I only had enough for three days, so I went to the UNHCR and told them my story. They asked me where I slept and I said at the Star Ferry. I asked for assistance and they replied, “Go back to Star Ferry!” I was shocked, I couldn’t believed what they said to me. I asked the registration officer to introduce me to some Congolese people and they said they didn’t know any. But in fact there are many registered there!
Sleeping outside I got sick and was taken to Queen Elizabeth Hospital for six nights. Although in pain I was relieved I didn’t have to struggle for a bed. When I was discharged, a kind social worker sent me to a homeless shelter in Samshuipo where I stayed for one week; no need to pay there. They gave me food, I showered and felt safe for the first time. Later I informed UNHCR where I was sleeping and they told me to go back to Star Ferry as I didn’t have ID. They even called the shelter to say I couldn’t stay there any more. The UNHCR had me thrown back into the streets! From that day I spent FOUR MONTHS sleeping under the arches of the Cultural Centre and met many other refugees suffering the same fate. The most distressing part was finding food to eat and especially at night we were hungry as ISS doesn’t support those without homes. This was worse than in Congo: for four months I didn’t eat dinner and had to beg to eat.
Eventually I heard about Crossroads where I could volunteer and eat and this took me away from TST where there are a lot of police and immigration checks. Because my visa had expired I was afraid of staying in Kowloon. I was too afraid of being tortured by the police if I surrendered. That’s when I discovered the Gold Coast Beach. I left my suitcase at a shop in Chung King and only carried a small bag with the stuff I needed on the beach. I slept under a walkway for TWO MONTHS hiding from everyone. In the morning I went to Crossroads and nobody knew I had slept outside. I was so ashamed I didn’t even tell friends at the Jesus is Lord Church because I didn’t want to scare people. Actually, one day the pastor noticed I was suffering. We talked, I told him and he advised me to write a letter to the church explaining my suffering. After I wrote, nothing happened. That was what I feared: to ask for help and then get nothing, which was even more embarrassing than asking. I was very disappointed and after waiting for an answer for ten months, I stopped going there – this is something I’ve never told anyone and I’m glad to share it with you. I was in desperate need and they just ignored me!
Nights on the beach were tough. It was winter, November and December so it became dark early and it was cold. After 5pm I went to the beach. I waited till 6pm when everyone went home. I ate bread I saved from lunch. My shelter was under a walkway reaching from the road to the sand. I covered myself as best I could with material I found around there, stuff I hid under stones at dawn. When I lay down I could see the beach. Even the sea can surprise you, at night the waved could suddenly rise in a storm all the way up to my sleeping space. I was protected from the rain, but exposed to the wind. Often I couldn’t sleep because I wasn’t used to it: sleeping outside, worrying too much, no news from UNHCR, no news from home. I didn’t know this life before. I worried the whole night, constantly felt abandoned and lonely. I cried a lot.
In the morning the beach cleaners knew I was there, but didn’t make a fuss about it. Maybe they saw us, maybe they couldn’t do anything about it. I was there with another Ghanaian guy who slept there before me. Also another Nigerian guy join for a few weeks, but he gave up his case and went back home. We left the walkway before 7am to wash at the nearby public toilet. The water was cold and made my body ache as I wasn’t used to sleeping on the cold sand that chilled my bones. The beach was safe, but very lonely. It was an experience I will never forget as I didn’t expect to suffer like this in a modern city. It’s my wish that with your Refugee Shelter others will be spared my ordeal. May God bless you and support you with what you are doing. Thank you.
Ferdinand, 28 Congo
Open Letter to Legco: the right to work
Aug 7th, 2011 | Advocacy | Comment
Vision First is sponsoring an Open Letter to all Legco members, as well as community leaders, journalists and academia, pressing for refugees’ Right To Work. While this endeavour might be derided as Don Quixote jousting windmills, we believe that change is born of action and action stems from ideas pursued until they acquire momentum. This letter will only be read if accompanied by hundreds, if not thousands, of signatures. To gain support and broaden dissemination, we are posting both an English and French version and seek translations into the major languages spoken by refugees in HK. We will gather signatures at all the major meeting spots. If you believe in this cause and want to volunteer, please get in touch with us – thank you.
Version Française: Nous sommes des réfugiés vivant à Hong Kong
Urdu Version: http://visionfirstnow.org/uploads/Legco_Urdu.pdf
Sinhala Version: http://visionfirstnow.org/uploads/Legco_Singhala.pdf
Dear Sir or Madam,
We are refugees living in Hong Kong and we have a request that only the government of Hong Kong can help us with. We come from many different countries in Africa, the Middle-East and South East Asia. One thing unites us: our countries are often afflicted by war, brutality and political instability. And the reason we are here is not for an easier life or as ‘economic refugees’ but because we had no choice. In all cases to stay in our home countries would have meant intolerable suffering or even death. We are now here in Hong Kong seeking local integration or a host country in which to eventually settle. Some of us have been here only a few weeks but some have been here for many years.
While Hong Kong has been good enough to allow us entry and refuge, we find that our daily lives remain very difficult. We cannot work. This means we cannot contribute to the society in which we find ourselves. Not being able to work, at any kind of work, means a loss of identity and self-respect, and the shame in not being productive. We are also not allowed to follow formal education (after age eighteen) to improve our language and skills to equip us for the present and the future.
We are grateful for the refuge Hong Kong has given us; but we implore the government for a little more assistance to prevent the damage to lives that being not allowed to work can bring.
With respect we would ask for a speedier way of processing asylum seekers.
And either:
– more financial support for us while we are here;
– greater help with housing rental and medical and dental expenses
Or:
– the permission to find work, even if it is only on a temporary basis
We hope Hong Kong can show humane treatment here for some of its most powerless people.
Any help would be most gratefully appreciated.
Yours sincerely,
(signatures attached)
A thankful class, dismissed
Jul 31st, 2011 | Advocacy | Comment
The experience of working with Vision First as a teacher will always stay with me, not as a snapshot of something fixed in the past but as something that changes my thinking and behaviour now and in future. Frank’s comment comes to mind that whenever we are with people, regardless of how they appear to act, we may not know how they are feeling unless we understand the language of their lives. We can’t understand others unless, as the old lyric almost puts it, we walk a mile in their shoes.
Vision First is as much an activity as it is a place of refuge. People come and go, problems occur and are solved, in many cases. The problems are of day-to-day living: of finding rent and food; of getting from one place to another; of pursuing a host country in sometimes frustrating, small bureaucratic steps; of filling out forms and meeting with officials who may help, but often so very slowly; of learning the behaviour and language of a foreign and sometimes strange country; and of finding a home and peace and work. I came in and left without solving anything but I was a small part of this vital activity. However frustrating it may be at times for refugees, and those who try to help them, the alternative of not doing this activity would be much worse.
I will miss my class friends, but I won’t forget them. I will miss their humour and resourcefulness, and their dignity under pressure. I will miss those who often made their ideas known in class in a language that is not their native language. It takes courage to do this. But I will also miss those for whom English is new and very difficult, and who made progress sometimes painfully over the classes, and whose voices became stronger. In the end we’re all on the same boat and must help others to help ourselves. It’s an old cliche but I learned a lot more from my students than I suspect they learned from me. And I am grateful for this. I will continue my involvement with Vision First by spreading the word of this remarkable organization and its people.
Michael Holland
My Disneyland experience
Jul 30th, 2011 | Advocacy | Comment
It was a very hot day when I woke up. My Mom was waiting for me outside. After I prepared and got the camera then we hit the road. We got in the MTR and took a train to Sunny Bay, then we took a train to Hong Kong Disneyland.
When we got there the first thing we did was to take pictures of everywhere as if i was a photographer. But suddenly within a blink of an eye my camera fell down, but i got lucky and i fixed my camera properly. Suddenly it started raining just as the saying goes “April showers bring May flowers”. The rain stopped but then it started raining a bit more and then it started raining cats and dogs.
But after a couple of minutes it stopped raining and the Merry-go-round was opened and I rode on it. It was very funny to ride on it. And then the roller-coaster and so much more. But it was time for lunch and I ate a pack of popcorn and then i went to McDonald’s and i bough a chicken burger and French fries and drank a bottle of soda and continued with my journey.
The carnival started and it was very nice. But then it was time to go and when i went home I felt happy coz this was my second visit to Hong Kong Disneyland. Then i opened my Gmail and sent to my Best Friends Forever what happened and they felt happy for me coz they are my BFFs.
Thank you Vision First for a wonderful day out!
Aasiya, 11 (Somalia)
In memory of Awil
Jul 24th, 2011 | Advocacy | Comment
Born in Somalia 52 years ago, my dear friend Awil Aden Hassan died at the Caritas Medical Centre Friday night – may Allah have mercy on him. I’m thankful his suffering ended and he rests in the peace he couldn’t find alive. Awil arrived in Hong Kong in November 2009 and showed anyone who cared photos of his beloved Mogadishu taken before militiamen destroyed everything he had. He was old enough to remember the good days, decades ago, when our country was thriving and our capital a city to be proud of. He was fond of Somali songs and had several stored on the battered mobile phone he often listened to. We considered him an Old Man as he was double our age and had the wisdom of who’d seen much happen and the patience of who’d survived many hardship he wasn’t keen to talk about.
As months passed, this gentle man gradually lost hope in the refugee system. He was too polite to get upset, too patient to complain, yet he couldn’t understand why the process took so long and nobody could help him with urgent needs. He complained that he visited the UNHCR with pressing questions only to be sent to his lawyers. He went to that office only to be bounced back to the UNHCR. It went on like this for 15 months and each time he struggled to return home on foot. His home wasn’t at all a *home*, rather the last place he could go to. This tiny ninth floor room was his shelter, until an unforgiving landlord cut first water and then electricity because he had no money to pay. He used the public toilet near Fuk Wah street and washed in freezing water throughout winter. Even at night he had to go up and down to the bathroom on his bad legs, stopping to catch his breath as he became sicker and weaker. Without coins for bus fares, he walked for two hours to meet friends at Chung King Mansion and to required appointments. By evening he was usually too tired even to eat. Concerned about his weight loss I encouraged him, but he hardly ate more than a spoonful and often nothing at all as his stomach contracted with anxiety.
I heard him say “Let’s forget about it. If Hongkong doesn’t help me, it’s all over. What is the point of suffering more here than when I was in Mogadishu? I thought I had come to a better world, I imagined a community of support, but the truth is nobody cares about me. Nobody can help me and I’m too weak to survive by myself. I might as well be dead.” Awil woke up to the bitter truth that his hopes of asylum were tormented by a system that cannot handle old, weak people who cannot cope with this harsh life. With little English and no family, he fended for himself and with mounting depression his situation deteriorated fast. After suffering through a horribly cold and lonely winter, he lost hope and became withdrawn. He stopped eating. He was often drunk and nobody realized the depth of his anguish until suddenly, one February night, he turned to his roommate, said “I don’t feel well” and collapsed. He slipped into a coma that lasted five month and wore him down to his death yesterday. I wish I could contact his relatives in Somalia, but sadly I have no number and hope somebody will read this website and inform them.
Awil left us with the questions he couldn’t answer. Allah took him because his suffering was too much to bear, but even doctors couldn’t explain why he slipped into a coma in the first place. There was no disease, no brain damage, no heart issues. While he had a weak liver and was malnourished, he had nothing severe enough to switch his body off, except the dire conditions of his life. The hospital did more tests, but found nothing. The doctors concluded that through severe depression and anxiety he lost his will to live. Awil gradually lost hope and thus his will to survive. I was told that if his family could visit and care for his withering body, perhaps he wouldn’t have become skin and bones. I will be forever haunted by his comatose, glazed eyes that peered right through me as if examining my soul and the suffering we share. Awil wasn’t recognized a UNHCR refugee because he died before the long process completed. Had he been respected as a vulnerable senior and screened quicker, maybe he would still be with us. This we will never know, but his death highlights every refugee’s distress struggling with a system that treats us as less-than-human. Ultimately, we all bear responsibility for this tragedy and those who could have done more, bear more.
Truly only to Allah we belong and truly, to Him we shall return.
Abdikarim
email from Mr. Kyran Stutterd:
Dear Vision First – I have just read your tragic article about Awil. His story is one of isolation, hopelessness and abandonment by a system that is bereft of compassion and, at worst, lacks even a basic understanding of human needs. One cannot help but feel the loneliness and despair Awil had to endure to remain in HK, to retain his sanity while given the run-a-round by an inadequate system – he ultimately was lost in an ocean of bureaucracy. His story is one of the strength of the human spirit, the will to survive and escape the ravages of war in his homeland, the destruction of his traditional way of life and the loss of family. His was a human spirit that was allowed to wither and die in the shadow of government policy. Many asylum seekers in search of a new life – particularly if they are on their own without family support – become emotionally vulnerable in an alien environment. In their search for a better and more secure life, they create an utopian vision, a dream they hope will arisen from the suffering they endured. Unfortunately in most cases their dreams are not realized. Their reality frequently turns into a living nightmare that engulfs them in loneliness and despair. The absence of family members heightens their anguish, as in this foreign country they lack the community/tribal counselling they grew up with and is an integral part of their culture. In many cases asylum seekers wish to return home, to a way of life which is familiar to them, even though they will put their lives at risk doing so.
Asylum seekers’ appeal dismissed
Jul 22nd, 2011 | Advocacy | Comment
Chris Ip writes in SCMP on Jul 22, 2011
Version Française: Appel rejeté de demandeurs d’asile
An appeal for the government to process asylum seekers, which took the Court of Appeal more than 17 months to rule on, ended in a dismissal yesterday. Asylum seekers currently either seek refugee status from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), or they apply to the Immigration Department for classification as genuine torture claimants. This system of two separate processes to determine who should or should not be given protection, has been criticised for years
Yesterday’s judgment left the status quo unchanged. The judgment said Hong Kong’s domestic laws explicitly overrode recognised international norms of not returning asylum seekers to their countries. This meant that the government can continue to reject taking responsibility for screening asylum seekers. The case concerns six asylum seekers from Africa and South Asia, whose claims were rejected by the UNHCR. The government says there are 6,700 torture claimants here, while the UNHCR says there are 535 asylum seekers. Many claimants apply for protection through both processes.
The Law Society, Bar Association and the UNHCR are critical of the current dual-track system, and are advocating a single system that is run by the government. The current system allows fraudulent claimants to stall for time by applying through one of the processes after they are rejected by the other. Meanwhile, the genuinely vulnerable claimants have to wait for years for their application to be processed. UN agencies are non-governmental bodies, so they are not obliged to be transparent in their application process. Unlike the government’s application process, UNHCR applicants do not receive legal assistance, they lack legal recourse to appeal the UNHCR’s ruling on their application, and they do not even know who decides their applications.
“It just goes into a black box and you don’t know who’s making the decision,” said Mark Daly, a human rights solicitor who represents asylum seekers. Madam Justice Maria Yuen Ka-ning said in her judgment that even if the international norms – known as customary international law – applied, it did not follow that the government itself had to screen asylum seekers. It could leave that to the UNHCR, Justice Yuen said. Mr Justice Andrew Cheung Kui-nung and Mr Justice Johnson Lam Man-hon agreed with her argument. The judgment comes a week after the first reading of the long-awaited revised Immigration Bill. Daly said it was “highly likely” that he would initiate an appeal for the six asylum seekers to the Court of Final Appeal. He said the verdict was the longest wait for a judgment that he could remember in his legal career.
Legal Update from Barnes & Daly
Jul 20th, 2011 | Advocacy | Comment
Version Française: Une brève mise à jour de Barnes & Daly
Vision First receives frequent requests for updated information on the legislative process concerning asylum-seekers and refugees in Hong Kong. We have asked Mr. Mark Daly to kindly prepare an outline of the various cases his firm is working on. While currently there isn’t much change to the status quo, our members will be glad to hear they haven’t been forgotten in their long struggle. Many dedicated advocates are working tirelessly to bring about the changes needed to address the failures, limitations and omissions of the city’s asylum system.
A brief update from Barnes & Daly on some of the legal developments in Hong Kong (July 2011).
1. Customary International Law case
The judgment from the Court of Appeal, relating to the obligations on the Hong Kong SAR under customary international law (“CIL”) for refugees and fair refugee status determination (“RSD”), is still pending. This is extraordinarily 16 months since the hearing last year, but the decision could be handed down at any time.
[Judgment was issued 21 July 2011 Judgement CACV 132-137(2008)]
2. Right to Work case
Right to work for refugees and successful CAT claimants – Barnes & Daly are taking the case to the Court of Appeal. The case may have prompted the HKSAR to begin to consider the work issue which has found its way, in very attenuated fashion, into the proposed CAT legislation (see note 6 below). Please see link below for the judgment at the Court of First Instance.
3. “Temporary visa” case
Barnes & Daly are attempting to take the case to the Court of Final Appeal (highest court in Hong Kong). Please see link below for the judgment at the Court of Appeal.
4. UNHCR Fast Tracking
Barnes & Daly have concerns based on recent cases that the UNHCR continue to make rapid and unfair decisions – in particular while asylum seekers are detained upon arrival, have no opportunity to evidence their claims, and do not have the opportunity to obtain legal representation.
5. New CAT system
The new CAT system is picking up steam. This continues to raise new legal issues given the “overlap” with refugee claims to the UNHCR and CAT claims to the HKSAR. Although it’s early days for this system (although far too slow from the applicants’ perspective) one of the benefits is a fairer assessment under CAT. With government funded legal representation there is the possibility for an enhanced ability to obtain evidence for applicants which can be used in the UNHCR process.
6. Immigration (Amendment) Bill
Hong Kong SAR has tabled a proposed law to assess asylum-seekers claims of torture. Please see the link below to the proposed new HKSAR legislation for CAT claimants which the HKSAR will try to force through in the new legislative term. There are numerous problems with the legislation, first and foremost that it does not include refugees and asylum seekers, and Barnes & Daly are further reviewing the proposal.
http://www.legco.gov.hk/yr10-11/english/bills/brief/b41_brf.pdf