TNAG-1905-FCO40-2709-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-refugees-voluntary-and-mandatory-repat-1989 — Page 395

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thereafter. A programme co-ordinator will be appointed to oversee all the counselling, information and training activities which are fundamental to the success of the programme. The following staffing structure, which would include an NGO component, is foreseen:

Programme Co-ordinator: 1

Supervisors:

Counsellors:

1 per first-asylum country: total 5

2 per location, plus 1 per 500 persons

15. Counselling in countries of first asylum needs to be complemented by activities undertaken by UNHCR and accredited NGOs in the country of origin. These activities should include, where possible, contact with and counselling of families of screened out and the regular monitoring of previous groups of returnees. In the course of monitoring visits, data would be gathered in such forms as films, photographs, sound recordings, letters etc. and rapidly disseminated to all countries of first-asylum for use in counselling for voluntary return. Limited additional staff may also be required for this purpose. In this context it may be noted that the post of a UNHCR Reptariation Officer has already been approved for the programme in Viet Nam.

Physical Arrangements

16.

The accommodation of rejected cases will be an important factor in the promotion of voluntary repatriation. In this respect, the following arrangements are forseen:

a)

Rejected cases should be accommodated separately from those recognised as refugees and being processed for resettlement in third countries;

b) Rejected cases volunteering for repatriation should be immediately

separated from the remainder of the caseload to avoid the application of pressure by persons or groups hostile to the notion of return. Separate accommodation could be provided either at a different location or in a separate section of the same camp. Intensive support counselling should be made available at this time. Those withdrawing applications should be returned to the main camp.

c)

Consideration may also be given to moving to separate accommodation, possibly within the same camp, those who have not volunteered for return after a period of six months so as to avoid newly rejected cases being influenced by a hard core of longstayers.

Educational Arrangements

17.

It is important that conditions for rejected cases should not be such as to radicalise them in their refusal to return to their country of origin by reinforcing a social outcast mentality. Measures will be taken to maintain the dignity of those ineligible for resettlement and facilitate their eventual reintegration into their own society. The following measures are therefore foreseen, drawing, wherever possible, on resources available from within the refugee population itself:

a)

Basic education for school-age chilren;

b)

Vietnamese literacy, and numeracy for adults,

c)

Vocational training with emphasis on programmes to facilitate reintegration in the country of origin