From The Minister of State
Richard Luce MP
pa
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
Sic
14 February 1985
НКК
24315
INDEX
42
Hear
Edwina
Thank you for your letter of 31 January enclosing a letter about Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong from Ms Penelope Dane, Refugee Action Project Leader at the Vietnamese Centre, The Cedars, Oakwood, Derby DE2 4FY. I have of course received a copy of the British Refugee Council (BRC)'s report "Behind Barbed Wire", which Ms Dane mentions, and I have recently had a wide-ranging discussion on the subject with David Ennals, Chairman of the Asia Committee of the BRC, and some of his colleagues. I have also given evidence to the Sub-Committee on Race Relations and Immigration which, as I expect you know, has been looking carefully into the Vietnamese refugee problems in Hong Kong.
I should like to make the general point that the Hong Kong Government's refugee policy must be seen within the context of the enormous refugee burden that Hong Kong has shouldered in recent years. More than half a million people have left Vietnam by boat since 1975 and of these over 100,000 have arrived in Hong Kong. Although it is one of the most densely populated places in the world, Hong Kong has turned none away: all have been given temporary asylum pending resettlement. Hong Kong has also accepted 14,000 displaced Indo-Chinese for permanent settlement.
For the first few years the rate of resettlement from the refugee centres in Hong Kong was satisfactory but by 1982 it had fallen considerably while large numbers of boat people continued to arrive. As a result the number in Hong Kong began to rise and their prospects of resettlement grew worse.
Against this background, the Hong Kong Government introduced in July 1982 a policy of placing newly arriving refugees in closed centres, from which they are not permitted to seek outside employment. This step was taken with great reluctance, but it was considered essential to try to discourage people from setting out from Vietnam for Hong Kong. The arrival rate has since slowed but a flow nevertheless continues. We and the UNHCR are
Mrs Edwina Currie MP
House of Commons
LONDON
SW1A OAA
/working