LIKE OTHER fifth formers, Carmen Tang Ka-man is preparing for the upcoming Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination (HKCEE). Unlike most, however, she may not be able to sit the exams.
Arriving in Hong Kong in mid-1999 on a two-way permit, the 18-year-old is one of the teenage mainland migrants trapped in the bitter legal battle for right of abode. She could be deported by the end of the month.
Life seems to be playing jokes on Ka-man. When she was 10 years old, her parents and younger brother left Dongguan in Guangdong province for Hong Kong, leaving her with her grandmother.
A few months after her 14th birthday, she received a one-way permit, which her parents had applied for, only to have it taken back by the mainland authorities. Apparently she was over the age limit and had to re-apply independently.
The age limit was later extended to 15, and again to 18 last January. But every time the announcement was made, she was another few months too old.
'It was always like this, always by a few months,' said the frustrated Ka-man.