VF Report: ‘Slum like a favela’ hastily dismantled
Jan 14th, 2015 | Housing, VF Report | Comment
Vision First reported on the Slum like a Favela, south of Yuen Long, on 6 December 2013. Here ISS-HK paid from the public purse the rent of dozens of refugees. This compound, that defied belief with its unstable cubicles erected on metal stilts and piping, manifestly disregarded any health or safety standards or concerns.
Adding insult to injury Vision First documented that the purported slum lord recently expanded the compound – to maximize profits from refugees – with additional metal stalls jutting precariously off the second level, two meters over the footpath. It was shocking to see that a crawlspace, previously used as a doghouse, had been converted into refugee bed space! There is no end to this owner’s ingenuity and greed.
Regrettably, there is yet no sign of enforcement action by the Lands Department here.
However, according to initial documents gathered by Vision First, the purported landlord’s gainful collaboration with ISS-HK started in May 2011 and continued till December 2014, when suddenly, and for reason unknown, caseworkers pulled the plug on this compound. Why?
Indicative is that nine present residents displayed leases and ISS-HK contracts stating, “I confirm my address to be at Letter box 224, 18 Shek Tong Tsuen, Au Tau, Yuen Long.” Alarmingly there are other refugees living 15 minutes down the hill with documents showing the same address and signed by the same person. It is reported that many more are on the same books.
A refugee described being visited by an ISS caseworker in December 2014, the first time in three years. The refugee tenant says he was told roughly: “The downstairs structure is not OK. Your room is dangerous. January is last money coming for your room. This is ultimatum and you must leave.”
Not without reason, the refugee rebutted that he had lived in that same room for four years, not by choice but out of necessity, as he couldn’t afford anything better. If his room was deemed suitable for human living and conformed with regulations before, why leave now?
The officer apparently replied that this was not his problem. Rather it was “ISS team problem. They report to me. They said the structure is no good. This place is not safe for you.”
Where shall this refugee go when suddenly deprived of the social relationships he built over four years in the same slum and when not provided with the necessary assistance to find proper housing? Will another similar slum welcome him and the other evicted?
Another refugee commented, “ISS is making big drama for refugees. They want us to leave these rooms and be homeless. They think that stopping the rent solves the problem, but there are no rooms we can rent for 1500$. If I go working and police catch me, I tell the judge that ISS no help me and I have to go working. Then my case-officer come to explain to the judge?”
We can’t but wonder about the reasons why ISS-HK is suddenly keen to close down slums.
The little girl with red eyes
Jan 13th, 2015 | Personal Experiences, Refugee Community, Welfare | Comment
My name is Nashu. I am a Bangladeshi refugee five years in Hong Kong. I want to thank Vision First for helping my people, because before Vision First come show us the way, we Bangladeshi could not speak to HK people who treat us like we don’t count and don’t have any rights. But what is difference between Bangladeshi refugee and African refugee killed by government, I ask you?
Is true that my uncle and my cousins escape to UK same time I came to HK. Last year they returned to Bangladesh with some UK documents after they were accepted as refugees. That is good for them, but there is no hope for me in HK because Bangladeshi never recognized as a refugee by Hong Kong Government.
Many years I live in a slum and I am very angry people say that we choose to live here. Why are we choose to live in slums if we can work and can rent nice room? There are always lies when people are treated like animals and those who don’t care about problem they think and say that poor people choose to suffer like that. Maybe they never talk to poor people.
Now I want to tell you about a very sad thing I see with my own eyes. I can’t feel comfortable and something must change. Near my home there is another slum where a refugee lady lives with her 3 years old daughter. She smoke Ashish (Ganja) because she is depressed and cannot have hope for the future. Her room is 3 x 3.5 feet and small like a car, so the girl breathe the smoke when she is sleeping.
When I visit I see the little girl is like drunk and her eyes are red and not looking normal. She tell me her father is sent by Immigration already back to Pakistan. The mother and daughter are paining very much without him. They are heartbroken I understand. This is real story that happen to many refugee families when Immigration send one parent away and family is broken.
The baby eyes and body movement is not normal. When I hold her I am shocked because her body is too much hurt. I think the baby is sick, maybe fever like that. But my friend tell me it is not fever. He say that after the father send back to his country, the mother is very sad and start to use some drugs at nighttime. When I first see the baby I feel very sad. True she is like a drunk!
What is the girl mistake that she is born in Hong Kong and her father is send away? She is refugee baby but her mother cannot work so cannot have good room and cannot have money to take care for her. They cannot have good future. Who is responsible to protect the human rights of refugee children born on the land of Hong Kong?
Now I tell you reason why refugees sell drugs to pay for rent, clothes, food and other costs. If the refugees sell drugs is because they don’t have job and if the police catch them send them too long time prison for working (15 months) and short time for selling drugs (4 months).
Also selling drugs big money come easy and working time is only few hours. But to do normal job the money is only 200-300$ and the working time is very long from early morning till late at night. So refugees are more scared that police will arrest them. It is law that make some refugee choose the wrong way as we don’t have the legal way to survive in Hong Kong.
The mysterious hut around a tree
Jan 12th, 2015 | Housing | Comment
VF Report: Criminal intimidation and arson in a refugee slum
Jan 12th, 2015 | Crime, Housing, VF Report | Comment
The video below shows thugs threatening refugee settled in a slum in the New Territory and what appear as throwing bricks at an apparently non-compliant refugee tenant. From the video it is understood the registered owner is required by the Lands Department to purge unauthorized structures rented to refugees through the government contractor ISS-HK.
Vision First believes the government should do more to guarantee the safety and protection of refugees caught in the crossfire between slum lords and Lands Department officials. After two years of yawning reactions to our reports on unauthorized structures settling homeless refugees (who are prohibited from working) it appears that lease enforcement officers are taking action.
While the official line remains “… this office is still gathering the necessary information about this case”, Vision First has been informed from refugee sources about increased inspection and enforcement action in several slums south of Yuen Long, from where dozens of refugees were coerced to hastily resettle last week.
This is undoubtedly a welcome development supporting our opinion that refugees were settled in 69 dreadful compounds, as well as dozens of lone huts such as this one ‘around a tree’, with blatant disregard for their well-being, public safety and human rights in general.
A dire warning must be raised. Although refugees lived in slums for lack of earning power and housing alternatives, the responsibility for this crisis falls squarely on the shoulders of SWD officers who failed to effectively monitor their contractor. An officer informally disclosed to Vision First that they still haven’t visited these slums and obtain their principle information from this website.
Vision First obtained copies of documents sent by District Lands Offices to registered owners (critically not always equivalent to the purported landlords in ‘collaboration’ with ISS-HK) warning not to “erect or construct any building or structure of any description on the Lot or any part thereof without having obtained the approval … Breach of the said covenant will give the Government a right to re-enter the Lot.”
A notice ordered, “I hereby require you to remedy the said breach by demolishing and removing the Structure in all respects to my satisfaction within 28 days from the date of this letter, failing which … the Government’s right to take lease enforcement action against the structures … re-enter upon the Lot … other actions as may be deemed appropriate …”
Problematically, landlords are made aware that they risk losing more than a gainful ‘collaboration’ with ISS-HK. If the Lands Department re-enters the land, owners will be struck off lands registries thereby forfeiting use and enjoyment of properties forever.
Here is where relations deteriorate and get ugly: In the case below, which Vision First has been told is not an isolated incident, thugs were summoned for the dirty work of threating and intimidating refugees to leave in a hurry, or else …
Is it sufficient for ISS-HK case workers to urge refugees to hastily relocate without offering affordable rooms, given they have no money and no right to work? Is it acceptable for SWD to wash its hands of a crisis they failed to avert and was foreseeable two years ago? Why are vulnerable refugees exposed to criminal intimidation of the sort they might have fled in their homeland?
Nothing is more fatal to justice than apathy
Jan 10th, 2015 | Crime, VF Opinion, Welfare | Comment
We call him “Russia”, although his real name is Leo, because he hails from Leo Tolstoy’s country. His experiences and his namesake speak convincingly of an aphorism applicable worldwide and here in Hong Kong: “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing”.
Leo sleeps on a sofa at the Refugee Union to avoid being homeless, not owing to this winter cold that barely tickles Russians, but owing to the disgrace of his unavoidable predicament. In fact, upon registration he politely asked if he could sleep on the rooftop to avoid being out on the street.
Urban refugees who either don’t have a home, or don’t have money to pay rent surplus, lament the humiliation of being let down by the authorities that treat them indifferently, to say the least, as if condemning human beings to physical suffering and psychological despair were a customary prerogative of power.
There was a time, and not so long ago, when refugees received no help at all. The dark ages ended in 2006 with the introduction of meagre assistance, but today is hardly a progressive time as welfare seems formulate to include deprivation and punishment. Vision First contends that perhaps ‘no aid’ is preferable to ‘some aid’ because those with much to hope, have nothing to lose in activism.
Let’s consider two aspects, housing and food, before drawing conclusions. First, unrealistic rent assistance force hundreds of refugees into the grip of slum lords, who think nothing of verbal abuse and, in extreme cases, criminally intimidation. Last week, in another extreme case, landlord thugs launched dogs against refugees and threw burning paper into rooms in arson attacks.
Second, failed food distribution generates a host of alarming practices: the widespread and mysterious phenomenom of deminishing rations; substandard and undesirable products that encourage the ‘revolving door scam’; profiteering through questionable merchandising practices, and inferior or rotten produce; and, in one extreme cases, distribution of contraband milk.
Vision First is reluctantly becoming the reporter and repository of ‘extreme cases’ that seem to shed their extremeness as they increasingly become more prevalent and less surprising. Refugee victims regularly file police reports, but lament that perpetrators avoid prosecution as demonstrated by the persistence of their actions. Are certain social groups fair game for abuse?
Apathy in law enforcement is indicative of a selective application of law and order, as resident victims might arguably experience a swifter and less biased application of criminal law. Beyond apathy, it is the way laws and regulations to upheld justice at times work against the justice they should upheld, to the point that the police might be less inclined to pursue local goons when they can take an easy shot at people perceived as enjoying lesser human rights.
Thus, are refugees perceived as second-class victims already submerged in criminality? Is their victimization tolerated within the culture of rejection? Why does guilt seem to circle back to them? Do we all share the blame in turning a blind eye to such developments?
Refugees fight against slum eviction
Jan 9th, 2015 | Housing, Refugee Community, Welfare | Comment
Link to VF report on the Slum in the Honeymoon House closing down
ISS approved this slum for 7 years and now they want us to leave in 7 days. We don’t like to live in these bad conditions, but we cannot work and do not have money to rent good room. Before I tell my (ISS-HK) officer, I say outside homes in Yuen Long are very expensive. Maybe room cost 2000$, so how we rent for 1500$ budget ISS give us? He say to me, ‘Not my matter. Not my problem’ … So what we do? Should we be homeless because Hong Kong Government, Social Welfare Department and ISS refuse to provide home, refuse to increase refugee rent allowance and refuse refugee from working? This is why we come today to protest at the Social Welfare Department main office because this is shameful treatment of refugees.” – Aziz, refugee in Hong Kong since 2006
Can this girl survive on 120gr of formula?
Jan 8th, 2015 | Food, Welfare | Comment
Vision First reported to the Social Welfare Department the case of a refugee girl, Shamea, whose parents said only receives 4 (four) cans of baby milk formula from the government contractor each month. This quantity might have been sufficient when she was an infant, but are 120 grams of formula sufficient when she turns 3 next month and no other food is provided?
The Srilankan father and Indonesian mother report they were confronted by a wall of indifference as they pleaded with three different caseworkers, over three years, who all stringently stuck to the line that the formula was all the girl required and the parents should share their rations with her!
Vision First is appealed that an utter disregard for the physical needs of young children is displayed, despite the SWD assuring that food allowances for refugees are carefully evaluated by nutritionists of the Health Department to guarantee the health and wellbeing of refugees, both adult and children. If that is so, how are these incongruences explained? Where else in society do children aged three subsist on baby formula alone, besides it being insufficiently provided?
The parents are deeply distressed. They are keenly aware that refugees are not allowed to work and of consequence food rations are their lifeline. On 7 January 2015, Vision First received three such complaints from similarly distraught mothers. Does this evince a covert policy to punish refugee families by making life difficult for their children? We would want to hope this line of thinking is too cruel to be even taken into consideration.
But, the SWD receives copies of the monthly food distribution sheets. Considering the known age of children, doesn’t the SWD question whether rations are sufficient for each age group? The SWD cannot raise ignorance as an excuse when the data is in front of their eyes.
We query: Is the SWD indirectly encouraging parents to work illegally? Will the SWD step forward to defend parents compelled to earn money to supplement welfare? Why do present welfare policies, supposedly formulated on humanitarian grounds to prevent destitution, manifestly fail to reach such an objective?
VF Report: The Slum in the Honeymoon House slated for demolition
Jan 7th, 2015 | Crime, Housing, VF Report | Comment
On 11 September 2013 Vision First reported on the Slum in the Honeymoon House where ISS-HK settled more than 30 refugees, including babies, in wooden shacks and metal containers. In our view, this compound clearly demonstrated the result of unsavory practices between an unscrupulous purported landlord and a government contractor who, at a minimum, failed in due diligence.
Over the past sixteen months, Vision First regularly visited this slum collecting evidence of refugees being housed in dangerous and unhygienic structures that no right-minded person could remotely consider suitable for human beings. A lack of sanitation and sewerage was the least of the problems, as these ramshackle huts seemed on the verge of collapsing under their own weight.
Further, we are alarmed that refugee, some having lived there for 5 years, raise concerns about ownership as they inform about a slum lady who used a company (names withheld) for tenancy agreements to receive rent from ISS-HK, despite the land not being registered in that company’s name. Refugees report that the slum lady sold the property in early 2014 to a distraught new buyer who now faces stringent enforcement action by the authorities.
In the wake of numerous cross-departmental complaints filed by Vision First, the Lands Department is finally cracking down on the unauthorized structures erected in this slum that must be demolished or removed as a matter of urgency. Notices issued on 11 and 29 December 2014 have been retained as evidence that ISS-HK settled refugees in illegal structures not fit for human habitation. Again we wonder what supporting documents were submitted to SWD.
The Lands Dept notices call for demolition and warn “The public should thus stop to purchase or rent or reside in the unauthorized structures erected on the Lot. Otherwise, you may face losses or liability in the event of enforcement action by the Government against unauthorized or unlawful structures.”
The department is taking a surprising step, “Besides, for cases where estate agents have been involved in facilitating sales/rental transactions, the District Lands Office will refer to the Estate Agents Authority for her appropriate action.” We wonder if the fallout will implicate ISS-HK caseworkers who also facilitated rentals.
Recently we have been informed from refugee tenants of caseworkers contacting and urging them to move hastily out of this compound. Further, Vision First has been informed that refugees were told these huts were illegal and they would be settled in guesthouses while they looked for suitable rooms. This came as a shock to a refugee who queried, “Why was this location approved by ISS for seven years and suddenly we all have to leave in one week? If it is not good now for us, why was it good before?”
Lands Department inspectors surveyed every inch of the lot and found that not only the tin shacks, but also the solid brick-and-mortar homes are illegal. In no unequivocal terms, the registered owner was told that the entire lot must be returned to its original farmland condition for the raising of crops, which we presume excludes categorically the raising of refugee children.
