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Poverty and destitution in Hong Kong

Nov 21st, 2013 | Advocacy | Comment

Destitution is generally understood as a deprivation or lack of something – an extreme want of resources the lack of which may jeopardize survival itself.  It is worth repeating here that ISS-HK is contracted by the government to provide services to refugees in a form that “prevents destitution.”

But what exactly determines destitution? This new article helps to clarify the concept by analyzing what deprivation is in Hong Kong. After researching community views, a list was compiled of the items that Hong Kong people consider a necessity. It flows that a lack of such items directly undermines an acceptable minimum living standard. The results define poverty in real terms and more specifically than by measuring income alone, which is the government preferred method.

Poverty is much more than lack of income and one doesn’t have to lose one’s job to appreciate it.

Interestingly, out of the 35 items that emerged from this study as to be a must for Hongkongers – divided in the categories of  “accommodation and food and clothing”, “medical care”, “social connections”, “training and education” and “basic amenities” – the great majority of ISS refugee clients we know possess very few.

It’s a no brainer, for most people, to conclude from our many ghetto reports, that refugees definitely do not have a “safe environment without structural dangers”, “sufficient living space at home, with no need to stay in bed all day”, “bathroom inside a self-contained apartment, with no need to share” … “a window”.

Yes, a simple window! An opening most residents take for granted, even if it opens on an adjacent building. To be able to look out of one’s home has a huge psychological effect anyone can appreciate. The opposite – being trapped in a coffin-room – produces a feeling of imprisonment that many readers would find hard to grasp, but is the structural oppression most refugees suffer and not only in the slums.

Further, refugees can hardly “go to a tea-house sometimes”, “have hot shower in winter”, “take transport to visit friends and relatives”. The list of NO boxes they would tick in this survey is unbearably and painfully long. Of course one leaves aside training opportunities that are denied adult refugees, unless they pay for them, which is rather difficult when they are prevented from earning an income.

The debasing tyranny of ‘in kind assistance’ not only denies freedom and flexibility, but robs recipients of dignity and respect. It is essentially a way to control the underprivileged by stating indirectly, “I don’t trust you are not an alcoholic. I don’t trust you are not a druggy. I don’t trust you with cash, so take your bag of rice … as my heart goes out to you”.

The ‘in kind’ provision prevents refugees from developing  broad “social connections”, “travel to their hometown”, have “dental check-up” and “purchase medicines prescribed by the doctor” – if they can even “consult a private doctor” that is.

The life of a refugee is a deprived life. And by this standard ISS has clearly failed in its contractual obligations.

Some people cannot fulfill their basic needs because of social exclusion rather than lack of money, for example ethnic minorities who face discrimination in the labour market, or who cannot access public services or financial instruments … These limitations can distort estimates of who is most at risk of poverty … The deprivation approach focuses on directly studying people’s actual ability to acquire the items required to meet basic needs.

“Deprivation and Poverty in Hong Kong” by Peter Saundersa, Hung Wongb and Wo Ping Wong

The remains of a refugee shack after a storm (photo by BillyHCKwok)

No. 52 – The slum under construction

Nov 19th, 2013 | Advocacy | Comment

Hidden discreetly along a path behind Chung Uk Tsuen, is another illegal business funded by ISS-HK with tax dollars. Mr. Cheung is a shrewd slum lord who for several years profited handsomely from refugees’ rent assistance. Business has been good, but the times are changing. Five refugees live in the outer huts that survived a blaze and storm in recent months. Life is always at risk where building rules are contravened for profit.

Vision First remains deeply concerned that the government has failed to monitoring the approval of refugee housing, while authorizing the payment of tens of millions of dollars to slum lords each year. Why do government departments continue to turn a blind eye? How does this happen in a city that takes great pride in the rule of law and clean administration? Are refugee lives less valuable than those of residents?

Mr. Cheung’s investment was struck twice by misfortune. In the summer, a fire broke out in a section of the slum and even ISS-HK decided that the affected rooms could not be rented without refurbishment. In September, typhoon winds tore down other rickety shacks, leaving only five metal-sheet ones standing. Then the slum lord was forced to spend money on renovation to secure more illicit profits.

The photos below reveal the extent of the work that is not driven by humanitarian consideration, but by exploitative calculation. How many rooms in what layout will maximize payment from ISS-HK? What room size will case workers approve? Should rooms have windows? Air-conditioning for ventilation? How many washing areas and toilets are acceptable for 20 people? What sewerage?

The planning was done before the government announced last week a rent increase from 1200$ to 1500$. Today Mr. Cheung is probably rubbing his hands together with greedy glee, unaware of Vision First’s determination to hurt his income. We will make weekly visits to this site, take photos and report to relevant authorities to ensure that ISS-HK does not settle a single refugees in this newly built ghetto.

Sometimes our activism makes a difference.

#52 – The slum under construction

click above to see a refugee ghetto under construction

The Right to Work for all refugees

Nov 18th, 2013 | Advocacy | Comment

Government concerns over opening a floodgate to refugees coming to our city to work, were policy changes implemented, such as granting them the right to work, are unjustified, says a new article by Chinese University scholars Michael Ramsden and Luke Marsh.

Using the Ma v Director of Immigration case, the authors offer comprehensive understanding of government views on refugees and strategies that should be implemented to successfully challenge the stringent employment policy with regard to refugees.

Importantly, from Vision First’s perspective, a convincing link is made between the excessive time refugees are made to wait in Hong Kong before a durable solution is found for them and the likeliness that prolonged unemployment causes a deterioration of their mental health.

This in turn is most likely to result in refugees agreeing to ‘voluntary departures’ to take their chances in their country of origin. In fact, in order to escape a protracted period of waiting while living at the margins of society, refugees would rather travel back home to face the dangers they had once escaped.

Vision First is a proponent of the idea that current government restriction on refugees working in the formal economy is cruel and unreasonable. We learn from this article that only when the refugee mental health is challenged does the director of immigration consider whether to grant permission, on exceptional circumstances, to grant work rights.

However, the threshold for claiming such ‘exceptional circumstances’ is so high that we question whether there is any willingness to effectively consider granting refugee rights on an individual basis.

This paper explores possible ways for refuges in Hong Kong to assert these rights and calls for a cogent administrative framework that has proper regard to a wide range of rights-based considerations in the assessment of refugee work authorization requests.

The ‘Right to Work’ of Refugees in Hong Kong: MA v Director of Immigration

Given Hong Kong’s general policy not to grant asylum it is apparent that little attempt is made to integrate refugees into society … Life as an individual is not all about survival and subsistence. This treatment places refugees in a position of destitution and denial of individual dignity (and is equivalent to CIDTP torture).

Forcing refugees to wait 5-7 years without work and income is torture

On dangerous ground

Nov 17th, 2013 | Advocacy | Comment

Increasing refugees’ rent assistance by 300$, the government presumably added about 15,000,000 to the 203,000,000$ allocated a group that realistically requires much more to be lifted from destitution – until it is afforded work rights. With this stingy concession, refugees are entitled to 2,560$ a month (1500 rent + 1060 food) and remain repressively 30% below the official poverty line. The government set the income at 3600$ for a family of one. Shouldn’t it ensure that who depend entirely on its support lives above it?

First, it is nonsense to justify oppressing people because some might abuse the system. This should be as self-evident as assisting all underprivileged citizens, even if some might be cheating. Further, the 5000 refugees in town have, for the most part, not exhausted the screening process and must not be presumed “fake” until their claims are fully evaluated by a credible system.

Vision First strongly emphasizes and reiterates that they are human beings who deserve shelter, food and water while they wait for the government to make a decision on their life.

As long as human beings breathe and walk in our city, it is the community’s duty to ensure everyone’s needs are met without exception. One cannot raise the lame excuse that some are abusing the system, to accept, condone or acquiesce to an asylum policy that causes physical suffering to the entire refugee community. That’s equivalent to dumping a box of apples because a few a rotten. To do so is a sign that motivations other than rights-based and humanitarian are formulating the asylum policy.

Credit for the belated increase undoubtedly goes to Vision First refugee members who rose against an oppressive housing practice since February 2013 when they first signed ISS-HK Agreements ‘in protest’. That being said, adding 300$ to their rent assistance is decidedly too little, too late. Let’s analyze why.

This Spring four-square-meter subdivided rooms rented for 1700$. Today they cost over 2000$. It is bewildering that anyone should suggest that 1500$ can rent anything legal, even with a deposit. The increase is laughable in the light of definite rental hikes in the coming twelve months. 1500 today is just as unrealistic as 1200 was a year ago. This palliative remedy is truly unreasonable in the face of real-life economic pressures that besiege every strata of our society.

That the rent increase is a sizable 25% justifies accusations of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment (CIDTP) against those whom the High Court said ‘deserve sympathy and should not be left in a destitute state’. Why did it take so long? Were earlier enhancements purposefully denied? Shouldn’t refugees jailed for working be now released following an official admission that rents were 25% below acceptable levels?

Vision First is most troubled that the Social Welfare Department hasn’t officially spoken against ISS-HK strategy to segregate refugees in ghettos. After exposing over 50 slums, we are deeply concerned that the government is supporting and subventing this practice by failing to provide sufficient assistance for slum dwellers to relocate into legal housing. Why hasn’t the government issued any statement against refugee ghettos? Are they officially condoned? Is it hoped that refugees will find 1500$ rooms?

It is alarming that slum lords have already increased rents over 1200$ in most of the ghettos exposed by Vision First. And that is exclusive of extortionary electricity charges. The myopic and unrealistic 300$ increase plays exquisitely into the hands of the criminals who exploit refugees the most. When slum lords learn that refugees receive 1500$, they will demand it without fail. It is likely that new ghettos will open to profit from this bonanza. Ten illegal room now generate 15,000$ a month without penalty!

The one sure outcome of this misguided increase is inflationary pressure in refugee ghettos. Nobody will escape upcoming rent hikes. The government might have considered this increase would benefit small landlords in Kowloon and in New Territory villages, but their 2000$ rooms remain unaffordable to destitute refugees. Again welfare remains markedly behind the curve and on dangerous ground.

There were only two reasonable, rights-bases solutions the government could have chosen. Either pay the cheapest rents in legal buildings in full, or allow refugees temporary work visas for as long as it takes the Immigration Department to assess protection claims.

If the current solution is the best the government could devise in four months, since the July LegCo meeting, one has to wonder whether the decision was left for summer interns to make.

If this is the “Enhanced Welfare Assistance”, then it’s too little, too late and hardly impressive.

Only Slum Lords will profit from the 300$ rent increase

Transgender asylum seeker says she turned to prostitution to survive

Nov 17th, 2013 | Media | Comment

TVB “Closer Look” on rent increase for refugees

Nov 16th, 2013 | Media | Comment

Government increases rent to 1500$ with deposit

Nov 15th, 2013 | Advocacy, Media | Comment

當局傾向增難民及酷刑聲請者津貼

政府早前表示檢討對難民和酷刑聲請者的援助水平。據了解當局初步打算將租金津貼水平跟貼綜援,
同時提供同等水平的按金。自由黨反對增加津貼,但社協認為可以改善那些人的生活。
本港有五千多名難民申請人及酷刑聲請者。當局正檢討援助水平。據了解,
初步傾向將租金津貼水平,由現時每名成年人每月1200元增至約1500元,
加幅約兩成半,亦傾向提供同等水平的按金津貼,
即再多1500元,協助難民尋找合適居所。
至於現時約1000元的實物食物援助,則傾向不調整。初步估計毋須向立法會追加撥款。
但自由黨反對增加津貼。
協助運作計劃的香港國際社會服務社認為,關鍵在於當局審批申請的時間能否縮短,
不會造成大量難民滯留本港。

English translation by Matthew

The government announced that they are going to review the assistance for refugees and torture claimants. The authorities will preliminary increase the rent assistance so that it can match the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA). At the same time the government will provide the same level of deposits.

The Liberal Party rejected the rent increase. The Society for Community Communication believes that it will help to improve the living conditions of these refugees.
Hong Kong now has more than five thousand individual with either refugee or torture claims applications. The government intends to increase the rent assistance from $1200 to $1500 for each adult. The increase rate is 25%.

The government also intends to increase the rent deposit to $1500 (per person) to assist the refugees in finding an appropriate living place.

With regard to the $1060 food assistance, the government intends to keep it unchanged. The government foresees no need to ask the Legislative Council to allocate extra funding. But the Liberal Party clearly expresses their objection.

The ISS-HK, who is assisting the operation, said that at issue right now is to shorten the time of verification so that a lot more refugees will not have to overstay in Hong Kong.

Vision First statement

In early 2013 VF members demanded that action be taken against the rent stranglehold. Vision First organized the first action in February 2013 when over 100 refugees wrote protest letters to ISS-HK demanding an increase in rent. It is regrettable that nobody was dignified with a written reply, despite empty expressions of concern.

This campaign was followed by 200+ letters to the LegCo Public Complaint Office. This advocacy triggered and emergency meeting of the LegCo Panel on Welfare on 22 July 2013. The panel concluded with a promise that the overall welfare package would be increased in a couple of months. It is now four months later.

Vision First expresses deep dissatisfaction with this palliative solution that does little to alleviate the suffering of refugees denied the right to work in one of Asia’s most expensive cities. If the government thinks there are basic, legal rooms in the market that rent for 1500$ a month, it is clearly living in the past decade.

We will not stop our hardline action until we achieve our objective of ensuring that the basic material and financial needs of refugees are met in full, or they are allowed to work.

This belated, insufficient and short-sighted adjustment of the failed welfare provision is a sure indication that the Government does not take its constitutional obligations seriously. We shall strive, united, for meaningful changes as we safeguard the rights of those we care for.

Government will increase refugee rent from 1200$ to 1500$ a month

Refugees could fill labour shortages

Nov 15th, 2013 | Advocacy | Comment

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1353805/leung-chun-ying-hints-plan-import-labour-construction

We read once again in the newspaper that the government intends to import foreign workers to address significant labour shortage in key areas of the economy. It is hard to understand why such a call is made when thousands of refugees in Hong Kong are stubbornly denied the right to work, and are thus institutionally prevented from providing such indispensable labour.

Here is a considerable supply of workers that currently powers the informal economy and barely earns enough to survive. Interestingly, they return most if not all their income to society in the form of rent and extortionary utility bills paid to greedy landlords. Were these capable individuals allowed to work temporarily where labour is urgently needed, the government could kill two birds with one stone.

On one hand, it would make use of flexible and readily available workers who desire nothing else but to be made productive during the time they await their asylum claims to be processed. On the other, the government would only need to provide welfare assistance to those unable to work, while allowing others to deploy underutilized skills. It makes good economic sense to explore this solution.

We ask: isn’t it in the best interest of all parties to allow refugees to work when they are skilled, young and physically able to endure arduous work, thus boosting the stretched labour supply? Doesn’t it make economic sense to save on labour import cost and employ people already in the city, who are currently denied any chance to contribute their skills to society?

We are told that it will be hard to complete future construction projects without resorting to foreign labour. Some refugees report that construction site managers approached them in the streets offering work because their boss faces tight schedules to deliver projects under conditions of labour shortage. Often, refugees turn such offers down, because they lack work rights and fear incarceration.

We question the use of rendering unproductive the entire community of refugees that is keen to engage in hard work to be considered “humans and not dogs”, because “even dogs are expected to do something, while we are just made to beg for food”. The government must bear in mind these are human beings with fundamental human rights, irrespective of the merits of each asylum case.

Refugees could be granted limited work rights in specific sectors of the economy, for a limited amount of hours per week. They could be offered alternative visa arrangements to step out of the asylum impasse. They could receive temporary worker visa to provide for themselves and their families back home. Refugees are not economic migrants. However – just like you and me – they too have pressing economic needs. What would happen to you and your family if you were unemployed for a decade?

The Security Bureau insists that granting work rights to refugees would engender a serious risk to the local labour force. What if the labour force is insufficient for the economic needs of the city? Wouldn’t that also be a serious threat to growth and prosperity? Vision First firmly reiterates that refugees would be an asset for Hong Kong, if only their skills and resourcefulness were wisely deployed.

It’s time for some lateral thinking outside the old ‘prejudice box’.

Refugees toil in the shadow economy to supplement a failed welfare system

RTHK comes slum hunting

Nov 14th, 2013 | Media | Comment

RTHK followed photographer Billy H C Kwok’s work in the refugee ghetto

ISS caseworker to refugee, “Go find some food!”

Nov 13th, 2013 | Advocacy | Comment

It has been reported that ISS-HK case worker Rachel Li said to an African mother:

“We want the government to deport all you people, so we can be free!
You people are disturbing.
You people are annoying.

ISS-HK Miss Panares said to the press, “I marvel at how brave they (case workers) have been to be actually dealing with this. I can tell you it’s quite a tough job for them because they are trying to provide support at the same time they are saying, ‘We cannot give you everything you need.’”

While Miss Panares marvels at her teams’ courage, nobody marvels at their lack of sympathy!

A Somali refugee complained to his ISS-HK case worker that he wasn’t getting three square meals a day. He was told, “That is not my problem. You go and find some food!” He noted that in his war-torn country it wasn’t as hard to stave off hunger as it is here, where he will be jailed for working for food. There is no excuse for refugees to be hungry in an affluent city that dumps 3,000 tons of foodstuff every day, or the equivalent weight of 600 elephants. Shame, shame, shame!

A recognized refugee approached ISS-HK for fresh milk for his baby. He was told, “If you want more milk, we must reduce the baby formula. We cannot give you both even if your child is losing weight!” The father asked for 20$ to buy fresh vegetables for his baby. The officer said, “No. We don’t have budget for this.” The refugee had a medical certificate confirming the child was sick and had lost weight. It meant nothing as the case worker stuck rigidly to rules in the face of evident hunger and despair.

In these three cases a pressing human need was met with professional negligence and lack of the very sympathy that the High Court demands for people seeking asylum. ISS-HK should be on notice that Vision First is recording every incident as evidence to be submitted to court, with the name of the case worker responsible for the affront. There is a time to hurt people and there is a time for pay. The husband of African lady said, “There will come a day when Rachel Li will run home with no clothes on!”

Vision First is filing “Applications For Legal Aid (Civil)” at the Legal Aid Department. The LAD officers tried to block the attempt by asking for supporting documents from ISS-HK. This ridiculous request was dealt with promptly in a very vocal and energetic fashion. Nothing will stop a rightful and long overdue judicial review of the shameful welfare that oppressed refugees since 2006. The grounds for Judicial Review are:

  1. Unreasonableness
  2. Illegality
  3. Unfairness and procedural impropriety
  4. Bias
  5. Apparent bias
  6. Order mandamus SWD to confirm refugees’ needs are being met.

The court decision is required on: Social Welfare Department and ISS-HK’s refusal to provide sufficient funds to have all basic material and financial needs of asylum seekers and successful refugees and torture claimants met in full.

#51 – The slum in the building

The slum in the building

click above to see how a flat is subdivided with partitions

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