It is the system that is abusing refugees
Mar 30th, 2015 | Crime, Food, Housing, Personal Experiences | Comment
I jumped out of a back room window when the police came to my home to arrest me a second time. I had been detained, questioned and tortured before, but refused to stop campaigning at university against state violence and abuse of human rights. The voice inside me was too strong. I could not keep quiet about injustice and I paid dearly for it. I have been in exile in Hong Kong for 9 years.
Recently in Chung King Mansions a student asked me why refugees exploit the liberal visa regime and abuse the asylum system to work illegally (economic interest) and sometimes to sell drugs (criminal interest). What needs to be understood is how the system forces people into these directions by denying the right to work, failing to provide enough assistance and jailing refugees 15 months for working and 7 months for selling drugs. Isn’t this entrapment?
Refugees in Hong Kong are dehumanized, denied basic human rights, don’t get enough support to survive, no proper accommodation, not enough food … people in this kind of situation must find a way to survive and sometimes the easier way is the illegal one. It is not refugees who are abusing the system, but the system that is abusing refugees. Then the government conveniently brands refugees as deviant, as threats to society, when in fact refugees have no legal direction.
I was talking to a resident who agreed that refugees do not engage in serious crime, generally speaking. It is low level offences that hardly register with the public. True criminals don’t need this process, they have better, more lucrative and sophisticated ways to achieve bigger objectives. The crimes that vulnerable refugees commit are worth a few hundred dollars, or thousand at best. It is money we desperately need to pay rent, buy food, clothes and other necessities.
It is very important for people to understand this. Refugees are forced to commit crime. It is typically not their character. They did not come here to be criminals. For example I need money to pay rent. I moved into a windowless room in Mongkok the size of a single bed. I cannot keep a fridge inside and it cost 2000 HK$. I told my ISS-HK caseworker that he must pay the full amount because I cannot work. He refused saying that 1500$ was the maximum and I had to find the rest myself. Suffering these indignity day in and day inflicts a deep wound on our sense of identity.
When I analyze the problem, I realize that it is political and hard to explain people like the student. She thinks that most refugees are economic migrants as that is what she read. She has been exposed to government propaganda that protects vested interests and does not respect the rights of non-citizens. It is hard for people who didn’t suffer state violations to understand state protection failures.
When you meet somebody in Hong Kong within five minutes they ask, “What is your job?” They are appraising your net-worth, how much money you make. Socrates said that first you have to teach citizens values. Hong Kong should create worthy people, not just release them into a capitalistic battlefield where they fight against each other for a piece of the pie. Citizens should learn about social values and appreciated that every person is valuable, even refugees. That’s how I see it.
The rule of law versus the real law
Mar 25th, 2015 | Crime, Food, Housing, Immigration, Welfare | Comment
“No tin sheds” ISS-HK caseworkers say
Mar 12th, 2015 | Crime, Housing, VF Report, Welfare | Comment
The village of Ha Che (下輋) is located in the rural area of Pat Heung (八鄉) where a slum fire took the life of a Srilankan refugee on 25 January 2015. Vision First campaigned for two years against refugee slums and exposed the dangerous, unhygienic conditions refugees are forced to endure without assistance or resources to rent basic, functional and safe housing.
Truth is, the results we achieved prior to the two slum fires were debatable. The SWD contractor ISS-HK only closed down the worst compounds, while slum lords got busy improving access, structures and facilities in dozens of other ghettos that remained unchallenged, despite being in gross violation of countless rules and regulations.
Slum refurbishment and improvement was the new strategy. It didn’t seem to matter that tin sheds and wooden huts were unauthorized structures that failed to meet building, hygiene and safety standards. Provided rooms had four walls and a false ceilings, ramshackle structures were good enough to settle refugees.
A case in point was the development of an area in “The slum in three sheds” reported by Vision First on 12 June 2014. A scrap yard around a small and dilapidated ancestral house was constructed into a large slum after our visit. ISS-HK approved this location for refugees in September 2014 according to the local fixer who proudly showed us around the business he was hopping to grow.
The fixer (name withheld) said he is not the registered owner, but leases the agricultural lot excluding the old brick house. He is probably not a farmer because there is no cultivation, or chicken sheds such as the modern operation across the ditch where poultry is for sale. He appears to be fixer engaged with ISS-HK in the slum business for profit. (A fixer is a person who uses influence or makes arrangements for others, especially by improper or unlawful means)
He prides himself as a humanitarian, “I want to help refugees, they are homeless. We are Hong Kong people, we have heart. We don’t want people to suffer. I built these two sheds with 20 rooms, portable toilets, outside kitchens. There is firefighting equipment everywhere … Where is the danger? ISS said no good. ISS stopped paying rent. Where should these foreigners go? Should I kick them into the street? Will you pay their rent? Why this place is no good?”
The fixer is upset with ISS-HK and feels unjustly treated. The fact that he erected illegal structures without permits escapes him. Water splashes inside the container when he flushes the primitive contraptions offered as toilet-shower to demonstrate that water flushes human waste into the field. The mobile kitchens are so rudimentary refugees don’t use them.
It appears that the fixer entered the slum business too late. He explained that the shed with 12 rooms rented to ISS-HK in September 2014, while the one with 8 rooms was operational in October. He gave us a tour kicking metal sheet to prove stability. “There were many refugees living her, but they left after ISS stopped paying rent” he laments.
The fixer is bitter, “I spent a lot of money to make these rooms. I told ISS I will build brick toilets in the field, but they said no good. There are buckets of water [for firefighting], but ISS said no good. Is this fair? From September till February they approved 20 refugees to live here, then they said, ‘No tin sheds.’ Who will pay me back the money I spent here? I cannot rent these rooms to locals. Even students will not live here. What am I supposed to do?”
Transcript of Cable TV report on shrunken food supplies
Mar 11th, 2015 | Crime, Food, Media, Welfare | Comment
Translation of the Cable TV report on shrunken food assistance to refugees, aired on 9 March 2015.
There are 7,500 refugees and torture claimants in Hong Kong who receive government assistance through the International Social Service (ISS-HK). However, the food rations they collect every month are ‘shrunken’. We investigated how much the ‘shrinkage’ is and where the missing money goes.
These 2 bags are the 10-days food collection of Hassan. Hassan came from Bangladesh to Hong Kong ten years ago and he receives government assistance as a torture claimant. Every month he goes to one of ISS [appointed grocery shops] three times to collect his food allowance.
Currently the Social Welfare Department outsources the refugee welfare service to International Social Service (ISS-HK) who arrange the food packages for 7,500 refugees, but the food collected is found to be ‘shrunken’. So, how much is the food worth? Our reports took the food to the market to check the value. The retail price of these [two bags of] food is $308.50, or $90 less than the price official price of $400.
Our reporter followed Hassan for a month. At the beginning of every month he goes to ISS office to fill in forms or his preferred food. But the forms do not indicate the price and the case worker does not inform the price of the food items he selected. He doesn’t know if it worth $1,200 [as indicated in official government communication].
Our reporter took his food packages to check at market prices. The total price of his monthly food was $993.30, or $200 less than his $1200 food allowance. Also the weight of the food Hassan collected is less than what he selected in the forms. Our reporter also found that other refugees receive ‘shrunken’ food collections. One refugees’ two bags collection was worth $320.90 only, and another refugee’s collection was worth $324.90. Both were about 20% less than [the food allowance].
International Social Service pointed out that if the $1,200 food subsidy is not used up, it will be returned to the government. However, Social Welfare Department reported that between the years 2010 and 2012 it disbursed 320 million HKD to ISS-HK. After the contract finished, ISS-HK returned 6.4 million HKD to the government as a reimbursement of administrative fees.
So, where is the remaining money? Our reporter asked ISS-HK again and they said the remaining money will be used for new collections [in subsequent months] until it is used up. And about the ‘shrinkage’ of the food, ISS-HK said refugees can weigh it themselves and if it is less than the standard amount they can ask to receive more.
Social Welfare Department said they will monitor the service quality of ISS-HK and how public money is used. Recently they also decided to change from in-kind food assistance to a coupon system in the new tender.
i-Cable: Value of refugee food assistance does not add up
Mar 9th, 2015 | Crime, Food, Media, Welfare | Comment
Book review: Asylum Seeking and the Global City
Mar 5th, 2015 | Crime, Detention, Immigration | Comment
Transcript of ONTV video on fires in the slums
Mar 5th, 2015 | Crime, Housing, Media, Welfare | Comment
Vision First supports lawmaker Fernando Cheung Chiu-hung
Mar 5th, 2015 | Advocacy, Crime, Refugee Community, Welfare | Comment
We are deeply saddened by the arrest of a great political supporter, the Honorable Fernando Cheung.
Fernando stands apart for his commitment to refugees going back over a decade. Veteran refugees recall him visiting them in prisons and Immigration detention ten years ago, when the injustice they suffered didn’t yet register with the broader society and media as today.
Fernando has a special heart for all the vulnerable and disenfranchised people in Hong Kong, with no exception. He always displayed the very best of Hong Kong hospitality to refugees who suffer unjustly against government policies aimed at discouraging, rather than assisting, seeking asylum.
The charges seem political. Hong Kong Government is on a witch-hunt to punish the organizers of the Occupy movement that challenged their authority.
We fervently hope that justice will prevail.
Fernando did the right thing – he stood resolutely with the people unafraid of the consequences.
