TNAG-1185-FCO40-1487-Resettlement-of-Vietnamese-refugees-from-Hong-Kong-into-the--1982 — Page 138

generally operated well with good working relationships being established among the parties and with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, there were areas in which any future programme should aim to be more effective. We comment in our report on the unrealistic expectations of life in the U.K. which many Vietnamese brought with them to this country; this problem could have been anticipated and arrangements made to ensure that proper information and advice about life in this country was available in the camps in Hong Kong. We did not make the most effective use of the information which was obtainable during the selection interviews in Hong Kong; with more time to plan the collection of this detail it could have aided the subsequent efforts made to settle the refugees.

26. These problems point to the need in any future programme for early planning of the selection process and also to the need to ensure that sufficient resources are deployed to carry it through. The Government was not persuaded of the need for a permanent selection team presence in Hong Kong during the Vietnamese programme, although other countries had such an arrangement. We believe that it is an option which should be given serious consideration should the need arise again for an overseas selection process to fill a refugee quota.

Reception

27.

(i) Size and regime of centres.

In

The size and regime of contres has had its effect on the ability of the agencies to move the refugees into settlement with reasonable speed. The aim has been to ensure that centres are not seen by the Vietnamese as homes or indeed village communities in themselves but as transit centres before settlement. In the smaller centres with more direct links between agency staff and the Vietnamese it has proved easy to get this message across. the larger centres, however, where one might have expected the less personal approach to have emphasised the transitory nature of centre life what has happened is that the Vietnamese have built up their own community within the centres and in some cases have sought to resist movement into settlement in the belief that they could pick and choose their housing and place of settlement. In these cases it has taken a lot of hard work by the agencies to persuade them of the reality of life in the U.K. The larger centres have of course had their advantages in the flexibility which they have permitted in the reception of large and perhaps unexpected arrivals. Our experience suggests however that the ideal centre in terms of management and maintaining a proper relationship with the refugees should restrict capacity to no more than 100 people.

(ii) Health

-

28. As indicated earlier, the use of reception centres meant that the Vietnamese could be screened for illnesses, given treatment and vaccinations thus preventing any community health risk and at the same time helping to safeguard the general health of the refugee community. This process suffered early in the programme and to some extent the Vietnamese may have been at risk while procedures to identify likely Vietnamese needs and to ensure the availability of medical records were established. We point to this as an issue which has to be considered immediately and plans prepared where any future programme is in prospect.

6.