IN his article (South China Morning Post, November 3), Peter van der Vaart gives the impression that the UNHCR takes its mandate for the protection of asylum seekers seriously. However, as any of your readers will know from the reports of your own newspaper in recent years, this is far from the case in Hong Kong. Just to give a few examples. Last year an agency, Community and Family Service International, charged with providing services to unaccompanied minors had its funding withdrawn by the UNHCR, which then alleged that services for the minors could be provided by their own already overworked staff. Earlier this year, the UNHCR initially insisted on sending a young boy back to Vietnam, alleging that his family there wanted him although his closer relatives in the United States had been funding him in the camp for some years. The TV reports found that his relatives had been persuaded to say that they would take him back although they intended not to do so. His siblings were reportedly living on the streets. When this was exposed by the media, the boy was allowed to go to the United States. Recently, there was a Correctional Services Department tear-gas 'raid' on Whitehead Detention Centre, where most of the residents were women and children. Where was the UNHCR? So much for the concern of the UNHCR for vulnerable people. W.T. MA Wan Chai
