April, 2006

A Lenten Mediation: The City's Compassion for Asylum-Seekers

Rose Wu

The word asylum dates from the early Christian witness when sanctuary was used as a shelter for people whose lives were under religious or political threat. After World War II, the United Nations decided to include the right to asylum in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and to adopt the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees in 1951. This marks a clear commitment of the international community to refugees worldwide that they should have the right to seek protection from any host country, but the Hong Kong government has not ratified the U.N.'s Convention on Refugees so asylum-seekers are usually considered illegal immigrants and thus are not permitted to work or seek any welfare assistance.

I was saddened to read recently about the lives of Hong Kong's asylum-seekers, especially after the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Hong Kong announced this month that they would no longer financially support asylum-seekers after April 30 because of budget constraints. According to the South China Morning Post, of the 1,300 asylum-seekers in Hong Kong, the UNHCR currently funds 94 awaiting the outcome of their refugee applications, mostly single mothers with young children and the sick and mentally ill. One illustration is the story of Angelina, 29, who fled a Central African country last year after her husband was arrested and arrived in Hong Kong in July last year. She told the reporter she has already been given notice to move out of her flat on April 4 because UNHCR will not pay her rent any more. The director of the UNHCR office in Hong Kong said that, due to worldwide cuts in funding, the agency could now only afford to support confirmed refugees.

While many human rights groups have criticised the Hong Kong government's lack of commitment and policies to deal with the problems faced by asylum-seekers, the Security Bureau defended the government's stance on asylum-seekers and refugees saying, "Hong Kong is small in size and has a high and dense population. . . . We thus have a firm policy of not granting asylum, and we do not have any obligation to admit individuals seeking refugee status under the 1951 Convention on Refugees."

Much like the period after World War II when Hong Kong was flooded with refugees from mainland China, the Church is now called once again to transform our compassion into witness. When Jesus was asked by the people, "When, Lord, did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and would not help you?" his answer was: "I tell you, whenever you refused to help one of these least important ones, you refused to help me. These then will be sent off to eternal punishment, but the righteous will go to eternal life."

I hope the churches in Hong Kong not only respond to the immediate needs of the asylum-seekers beyond any current assistance being provided but that they also support the asylum-seekers by urging the Hong Kong government to sign and ratify the 1951 Refugee Convention and to provide assistance to them on humanitarian grounds. In God's Kingdom, the hungry are fed, the prisoners are freed, the oppressed are liberated, the wounded and sick are healed and the strangers are offered hospitality. Our blessings should become the blessings of others.