TNAG-1419-FCO40-1902-Hong-Kong-Parliamentary-Sub-Committee-on-Race-Relations-and--1985 — Page 76

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UNHCR EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING - 7-17 OCTOBER 1985

Vietnamese Refugees in Hong Kong

Background

1.

There are at present some 10,500 Vietnamese boat people in camps

in Hong Kong awaiting resettlement. Over 90,000 refugees have been

resettled from Hong Kong since 1975, but resettlement opportunites

are now diminishing. Both UNHCR and the main resettlement countries (particularly the US and Australia) attribute this in part to the fact that the UK, despite its responsibility for the territory, has

taken so few refugees from Hong Kong in recent years (88 in 1984

(2.4% of the total resettled from Hong Kong); 5 so far in 1985

(0.2% of the total resettled)).

Report of Home Affairs Sub-Committee

Sub-Committee on Race Relations and

Immigration (SCORRI)

2.

In April 1985 SCORRI published a report entitled "Refugees and

Asylum with Special Reference to the Vietnamese". It recommended

inter alia that the closed centres in Hong Kong should be abolished

and their inmates transferred to open centres; that the UK's

immigration criteria for family reunion cases should be relaxed in

respect of Vietnamese in camps in countries of temporary asylum, and

that this UK initiative should be used to attract offers of

additional resettlement places from other countries for refugees now

in Hong Kong; and that Hong Kong should accept for settlement a

proportion of ethnic Chinese from its open camps.

3. On 26 September the Government will publish a White Paper in

response to SCORRI's report. With regard to the situation in Hong

Kong, it will announce the following:

(i)

HMG have decided to accept for resettlement some 500 refugees

who have relatives in the UK but who would normally

fall

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