From The Minister of State
Richard Luce MP
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
5 February 1985
HKK
24.35
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY
QFEB 1985
DESK OF MIC
INDEX
REGISTRY
tion Taken
SUH
22
топу
Thank you for forwarding to me a letter of 6 January 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 of the subject with David Ennals, Chairman of the Asia Committee of the BRC, and some of his colleagues.
"
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 deter people from setting out
The Rt Hon Tony Benn MP
House of Commons
London SW1A OAA
/from Vietnam