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FIKIC 243/11-
Vietnamese Refugees (Hong Kong
HISTRY
Vietnamese Refugees (HongKong)
8MAY 1986
Motion made, and Question proposed. That this House do now adjourn. [Mr. Neubert.].
10 pm
Action Taken
CPM
717186
Mr. Ian Wrigglesworth (Stockton, South): I am pleased to have this opportunity to raise the plight of Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong.
Recently I visited the territory and had an opportunity, not for the first time, to visit refugee camps containing Vietnamese refugees. I visited the Chi Ma Wan camp for the second time, and the Bowring camp for the first time. They are both closed camps for Vietnamese refugees. I was deeply disappointed and depressed to find that refugees are still there after, perhaps, four years. Every hon. Member and everyone in Hong Kong would regard their conditions as being totally unacceptable. The residents of Hong Kong, and certainly the residents of the camps, believe the Vietnamese refugees to be a forgotten people.
I shall describe the conditions in those camps. There cannot be any real family life, because there is no privacy. The living space for a family in some of the camps is literally the bottom or top end of a bunk, and has been for a very long time. Those bunks stand next to one another in rows in sheds. The families have no privacy and live in totally unacceptable conditions.
Those conditions might have been acceptable if the refugees had had to live in them for only a short time. After all, the situation was, as I and my parliamentary colleagues saw, critical some years ago when boat loads of refugees were arriving. In those circumstances, it was understandable that such conditions should exist. But I raise this subject tonight because I believe that the solution to the problem is not to spend much more money on upgrading the camps and making them pleasanter to live in but to get rid of them completely. We should get those people out of Hong Kong and resettle them in other countries throughout the world.
The British Government have the key to opening that door so that many more people can be resettled. When the closed camp regime was first introduced in 1982, there were about 12,600 refugees in them. The number has now fallen to just over 9,000. Hong Kong has accepted about 14,500 refugees since 1975. It is instructive but rather depressing to look at the resettlement figures for the various countries.
At the Geneva conference we agreed that we should take some 10,000 refugees, which is 2,500 less than overcrowded Hong Kong has been prepared to take. In 1980 we took 6,076 refugees, in 1981 we took 1,775, in 1982 we took 241, in 1983 we took 101, and in 1984 we took 88. Last year, we took only 44 refugees from the 10,000 or so that are in Hong Kong.
By contrast the United States of America in 1982 took 6,657, in 1983 it took 2,065, in 1984 it took 1,540 and in 1985 it took 1,721. That represented 43.5 per cent. of the total number of resettled refugees.
In 1985 Canada took 1,302 refugees, which represented 32.9 per cent. of the total number of resettled refugees. Australia took 329 refugees, 8.3 per cent. of those resettled.
What a contrast it is that in 1985 we can take 44, but America took more than 1,700, Canada more than 1,300 and Australia 329. The Minister will tell us that the
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Government agencies have accepted a commitment to accept an extra 500 family reunions at a rate of 40 a month. That will represent 500 additional places in Britain. I press the Minister to keep that rate of 40 a month. I should like to see that number increased beyond 40 per month and beyond the 500 places. The Home Affairs Select Committee took evidence on this issue and recommended that the Government should accept 40 refugees per month. If the Government are prepared to accept this modest commitment, it would unlock the door for America, Canada, Australia and other countries to take more refugees. I am sure that our agencies would be only too happy to agree to this. That has been made clear to the Government, and indeed to others who have investigated the matter.
Refugee Action undertook a major investigation of this issue. I shall not go into the details of its report which was published while I was in Hong Kong. I believe that Lord Chitnis, who led the delegation which compiled the report, proposes to raise the subject in another place shortly.
I press the Government to extend the commitment to take 40 refugees a month. I would prefer the Government to accept 50 refugees a month, but the Government's commitment would unlock the door to other refugees being resettled in America, Canada or Australia. Many of the refugees prefer to go to Canada or America. Obviously, the Vietnamese have had previous contact with the Americans. They have a knowledge of America and they often have friends and relations there. Therefore, their attention is drawn to that country and many of the refugees would, undoubtedly, like to settle there. There is a heavy responsibility on the Government to take more of the burden a small part of the burden-to encourage other Governments to accept more refugees.
The people of Hong Kong and the British people would find the conditions in the camps unacceptable in a civilised community. The Government in Hong Kong are spending tremendous amounts of money and taking enormous trouble to sustain those camps. Obviously, some improvements could be made, but the most striking thing about the camps which I visited was the marvellous work done there by many people.
Voluntary agencies such as Save the Children Fund the the Salvation Army and volunteers, some of them young people from Britain, are doing a marvellous job helping with education, for example, in the refugee camps. More could be done, but the priority is not to improve conditions in the camps--although I would love that—but to get people out and settled. If the Minister visits the camps, he will find that the refugees want to know when they can be resettled. They do not say that they want conditions improved. It is understandable that they want to get out, bearing in mind how long some of them have been there. When most of the refugees arrived and were put in the camps, they thought that they would be allowed to settle in Hong Kong or other countries fairly rapidly. Institutionalisation has sapped many people's will as they have been in the camps for a long time. There is no doubt that some of the more recent arrivals are not genuine refugees in that they are running away because they have been persecuted. They come because they want the benefit of the economic conditions that they read or hear about in Hong Kong and other Western countries. The Hong Kong Government introduced the closed camp regime to dissuade people from going to Hong Kong.
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