9
hut
noticed was that there were grass and trees and children playing on these and tyres, suspended by ropes. How refreshing it was to see children at play. I was shown the single womens’ and was encouraged to take a photograph which I did. I felt uncomfortable about this at all times when I was in the camp.
It somehow felt as though I was removing any sense of dignity. I came out of the hut and was greeted by a Save the Children Fund worker who was Vietnamese, had been settled in Canada and returned to Hong Kong to do Social Work and counselling in the camp.
His attitude was very caring and he expressed great concern about the refugees. I was very pleased to meet him. We then made
way to the Unaccompanied
Hut. Minors There were flowerbeds and trees to see on the way. Tuen Mun
army barracks and
had So although stark it
was
once an
our
are
much ・ more to it than either of the other camps I had visited. So far as unaccompanied minors are concerned in Hong Kong's Closed Camps they are kept in a separate building and have a couple,
themselves refugees who are what was described to me
"foster parents". as
There
125 unaccompanied minors approximately two thirds of whom are girls, and so it seems to me that the foster parents would be able to do little more than help the unaccompanied minors with their welfare in a very general way purely because of sheer numbers. At the time I visited there were only a few of the boys in their hut as the majority of them were either at school or outside. The boys I saw ranged in age from 10 to 17 years. Some had been there for 5 years in various camps and others for a year. The standard of English they spoke was, in the main, quite good although they all denied knowledge of the language when I first asked them Upon my return to England I was showing one of Ockenden's unaccompanied minors photographs of people I had met. In amongst these was a picture I took in the Unaccompanied Minors hut. The boy here expressed surprise when he saw a friend of his (with whom he had lost touch) in a photograph. The Ockenden boy has now been in this country for three years. He is doing GCSE examinations at the moment. His
friend is still in a closed camp in Hong Kong, now aged 17 with 5 empty years behind him . Next
will year he leave the unaccompanied minors hut and will become a single young man with no relatives in other countries. His chances of resettlement are very slim. At the other end of the spectrum there are unaccompanied minors These young people are on the the most important years of languish for five years in this education or hope for the future?
of ten years of age and less. verge of their teenage years, development. Are they to going to camp with no a hope of proper
The school at Tuen Mun was of a better standard than that at Chi Ma Wan. A whole series of huts had been kept for school use and the majority of these huts were being used for lessons for children. Adults attend in the evenings. The classes were well attended and the walls were thick enough so that each teacher was teaching only his or her own class! At the end of this row there was a creche in which small children were playing in the was that when same way as those at Chi Ma Wan. The difference we came out of the creche there were also children playing on
This I did not the grass outside the hut.
see at Chi Ma Wan.
work
Work opportunities at Tuen Mun seemed to be more abundant than
which at the other camps. There are two large buildings in is performed. In the first of these there were people sewing cloth with sewing machines. The difference between these people and those at Chi Ma Wan was that there were many more of them.
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