Don't starve refugees of the fruit of honest labour

Imagine you are faced with an impossible choice. You must survive in Hong Kong on HK$1,200 a month for housing and three bags of food every 10 days, or you can risk working illegally, where you will likely face exploitation by unscrupulous employers who will take advantage of your vulnerability, and where you face possible arrest and prosecution by the authorities, with severe penalties.

This is the dilemma that refugees in Hong Kong face every day, condemned to a life of deprivation and uncertainty.

Unfortunately, misconceptions are rife about who refugees are and why they are here, feeding a fear that allowing the right to work would open the floodgates to economic migrants.

Whereas an economic migrant chooses to come to Hong Kong to better their prospects, a refugee is forced to flee and cannot return because they are persecuted - sometimes by their own states.

Currently, the refugee-status determination and resettlement process for applicants takes years to complete.

Meanwhile, refugees must grapple with making ends meet in an unfamiliar city with no legal right to work or volunteer and relying on minimal welfare assistance that is inadequate for the cost of living.

Refugees are essentially forced into the very dependence for which they are often criticised, although they would prefer to be self-sufficient, if given the choice. The right to work is not the right to a guaranteed job; it is the right to have access to the labour market.