TNAG-1528-FCO40-2092-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-refugees-general-1986 — Page 48

RESETTLEMENT AND REPATRIATION

Refugees from Vietnam are no longer front page news. The international concern which was evident seven years ago at the 1979 Geneva conference has evaporated. As a result, offers of resettlement places have been drastically reduced. Refugees are having to wait much longer in countries of first asylum- 62% of Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong have been here for more than three years, 17% have been here for more than six years.

The USA, Canada and Australia are the main resettlement countries for refugees from Hong Kong's camps. In 1985, the USA took 1,721, Canada took 1,302 and Australia took 557. The rest of the world managed just 373.

The Geneva conference was the result of a British initiative, but from 1980 to 1985 the number of refugees taken in by Britain was cut to a merely token figure:

1980

6,076

1981

1,775

1982

241

1983

101

1984

88

1985

44

Last year the British government relaxed its family reunion. criteria, with the result that a further 500 refugees should be resettled from Hong Kong by the end of 1986, at the rate of about 40 per month; 138 left in the first three months of this year.

-13-

1