Tales of desperation as bureaucracy shuns the needy
A Nepalese couple has spent much of the past four years waiting - to get out of prison; to gain refugee status; to be relocated to a third country; and to be reunited with their children.
Hari, 45, and Merina, 37, whose real names cannot be used for security reasons, said they didn't know when the waiting would end. 'It's very difficult to live separated from your children. Being a refugee is difficult because you lose everything,' said Hari, who was recently released from prison.
'A refugee is someone who is isolated from the world,' said the former member of Nepal's ruling government party, in an interview at the Christian Action Chungking Mansions Service Centre in Tsim Sha Tsui. Hari arrived in Hong Kong with his wife in 2001 to escape Maoist rebels who had tortured him.
He was detained in Stanley and Victoria prisons for 18 months. The Hong Kong hospital he visited for treatment of a wrist that had been broken by his torturers called the police because he didn't have valid visa documents and lacked proof that the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) office was processing his claim.
Merina slept outside the Star Ferry terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui for six months of their separation, sometimes staying with a Nepalese family until Christian Action found her accommodation. The couple spoke on the telephone for four minutes each Wednesday and knew little of the safety of their four children, aged seven to 17, who are hiding in Nepal.
'My husband was in prison. I didn't have a place to sleep,' Merina says. 'I didn't have anything to eat. I didn't have my children. I wasn't allowed to meet my husband. I couldn't speak any English. It was very difficult.'
Hari and Merina now live in a flat in Yau Ma Tei, with help from the UNHCR, and bide their time studying English and the Bible. When they are eventually relocated to a third country, the couple will apply to bring their children there. As Hong Kong marks World Refugee Day, rights advocates criticise the SAR for not being among the 140 signatories of the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. China is a signatory and after the 1999 handover, the national government automatically extended the treaty Macau had as a Portuguese territory.
Signatory countries must provide protection to asylum seekers and refugees and grant them basic human rights equivalent to those enjoyed by foreign nationals living legally in a given country, including shelter, the right to work and education for children.
Asylum seekers who showed up at Hong Kong's borders are treated the same as other arrivals and it is the immigration officer's discretion to allow asylum seekers into Hong Kong. It is common for asylum seekers to enter Hong Kong on a tourist visa and contact the UNHCR office in Yau Ma Tei to apply for refugee status.
Elaine Noble, a lawyer and refugee co-ordinator for Amnesty International, said there was a possibility some potential asylum seekers were deported without being interviewed by the UNHCR. 'Most people manage to survive somehow, but it's really rough,' said Joe Freeman, co-ordinator of the Christian Action Chungking Mansions Service Centre, which regularly serves about 380 asylum seekers and refugees. 'There are some people who have to stay outside for several months.'
The 700-sq-ft centre is often crowded with refugees and asylum seekers, strumming guitars, surfing the internet and socialising. Established last year to serve refugees, asylum seekers and local ethnic minorities, the centre serves breakfast and dinner to almost 30 people each day and provides basic medical services and educational classes.
In addition to improving language skills, volunteer teacher Douglas Anderson said weekly adult English classes gave the mostly male asylum seekers from Nepal and African countries such as Cameroon a forum to discuss their hopes and goals.
While some of the men in the class said they liked Hong Kong, many were frustrated with the refugee application process, feared being detained by police, lacked shelter, food and medical services, and experienced racism in Hong Kong. 'Our life in Hong Kong is very difficult,' said one man from Cameroon. 'We don't have freedom. We cannot work. We just walk into Christian Action every day and [later] go to sleep.'
Another man from Ivory Coast said: 'I like my country, but I have problems so I cannot return there.'
There is a fledgling campaign from individual lawyers and NGOs, including Amnesty International, Christian Action and Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor, to lobby the government to fulfil what they believe is Hong Kong's moral obligation to protect refugees. 'Hong Kong is a prosperous place and people are sleeping in the streets. It's really a duty of a civilised society to do something for those in need,' said Cheung Ang Siew-mei, executive director of Christian Action.
A recent report commissioned by the UNHCR stated that Hong Kong had obligations under international law and was bound by international treaties that contained provisions relating to refugees.
Professor Roda Mushkat, head of the Faculty of Law at Hong Kong University and co-author of the report, said Hong Kong had pragmatically dealt with asylum seekers in the past, notably when it accepted 200,000 Vietnamese in the years after the Vietnam War.
The Vietnamese refugee era, however, had continued to negatively influence public opinion about refugees. The report emphasised the Refugee Convention didn't necessarily require granting permanent settlement to refugees in Hong Kong.
