POPULATION AND IMMIGRATION
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allowing a few young illegal immigrants to stay was exploited by criminals for illicit monetary gain, placing the lives of young children in jeopardy. There were reports of children being drowned or deserted during the journey to Hong Kong. To stop this, the Director of Immigration announced in April that the humanitarian grounds on which a few young illegal immigrants had been allowed to stay had to be tightened and that in principle, all illegal immigrants, regardless of age, would be repatriated. Those illegal immigrants under 14 years of age whose parents were in Hong Kong and who had already arrived were given 24 hours to report to the Immigration Department. With the assistance of the Chinese authorities, the situation was brought under control.
Vietnamese Refugees
The continuing influx of large numbers of Vietnamese refugees since the first group arrived in 1975, and the greater difficulties encountered in resettling them, have been a mounting problem for the Hong Kong government.
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During 1987, 3 395 of these refugees arrived in Hong Kong, compared with 2 055 who arrived in 1986.
With the 300 babies born during the year, the number of Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong at the end of 1987 totalled 9 532, of which 6 567 were in closed centres and 2 965 in open centres.
This was the first time since 1984, when the refugee population began to decline through resettlement, that the year-end figure exceeded that at the beginning of the year.
Of the total number of refugees in the centres, 2 167 left during the year for resettlement elsewhere, while 45 chose to accept resettlement in Hong Kong. The resettlement figure, however represented a decrease of 42 per cent in comparison with the 1986 figure. It was also the lowest of all annual resettlement figures since 1979.
Refugees arriving in Hong Kong continue to be detained in closed centres which were introduced in July 1982 to discourage more refugees from coming. In the closed centres, the refugees are not allowed to seek outside employment, and their movement is restricted within the boundaries of the centres. However, a full range of services such as social, educational and recreational services and skills and adult language training programmes is provided in the centres by the voluntary agencies funded by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Hong Kong government. Families split between open and closed centres are allowed to be reunited in closed centres.
As in previous years, the three major resettlement countries were the United States, Canada and Australia which continued to provide an ongoing programme for resettling Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong. Having accepted 464 refugees in 1985–6, the United Kingdom agreed in May 1987 to resettle a further 468 refugees from Hong Kong, spread over two years, under relaxed family reunion criteria The UK off-take started in July 1987, and 150 were resettled by the end of the year. In response to the British initiative, other countries also accepted a limited number of refugees from Hong Kong for resettlement. Hong Kong itself agreed to accept 250 Vietnamese refugees of Chinese origin from the open centres for local settlement, at the rate of about 20 per month. This scheme was intended to be part of an international effort to lessen the refugee problem in Hong Kong, but it met with little response from the refugees. So far only 101 refugees have taken advantage of this resettlement offer by Hong Kong.
The cost of maintaining refugees in Hong Kong came to $122 million in 1987, of which $116 million was spent on closed centres and $6.4 million on the open centre. The United