July, 2006

Poverty in Hong Kong and Thailand

Debbie Chan

(The author is the HKCI project secretary for civil society education.)

"Poverty is not an issue in Hong Kong." This was the general comment made by the applicants to the Hong Kong Christian Institute's (HKCI) experiential educational programme on poverty, The World without Outsiders.

In Hong Kong, it is shameful to be poor. If you are poor, there must be something wrong with you. Being lazy is the most typical explanation for people who are poor. Those in Hong Kong who sorely need assistance from the public as well as those who abuse the social welfare system are always condemned as parasites of society. A case was reported in March 2006 about a single mother who died from exhaustion as she needed to work two part-time jobs and collected refuse at night to raise her five daughters. She worked 19 hours a day to earn an income of less than HK$5,000 (US$641) per month. In her case, she was eligible to apply for social assistance but did not. After her death, she was glorified by the media as a model of self-reliance instead of living on the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance Scheme (CSSA).

Through collusion between the media and government, welfare recipients are successfully labelled as lazy people. In order not to be shamed for living on social welfare, workers are racing to the bottom to preserve their dignity. They are willing to work 10 hours a day or longer to earn a monthly salary of HK$5,000 or do a part-time job for HK$20 (about US$2.50) per hour. Therefore, there is a sufficient pool of labour readily exploited by employers. As a result, there were more than one million people whose household income was less than HK$7,500 (US$962) per month in 2003, and nearly half a million people had a monthly income of less than HK$4,000 (US$513) in 2005. Circumstances have not improved even with so-called economic progress in 2006.

As self-reliance has become an answer to poverty for the working poor, students from poor families are taught to be content with what they have even if they are being deprived. Therefore, they are not encouraged to question why there is poverty in Hong Kong.

In order to explore the causes of poverty, HKCI organised an exposure trip to Bangkok for 12 high school students in April. During the exposure trip, we visited several non-governmental organisations (NGOs), including the Duang Prateep Foundation; the Friends of Women Foundation; End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking in Children, known as ECPAT; and the Assembly of the Poor. They work for slum communities, women workers, children's rights and the urban poor respectively. Their work inspired us to think why farmers need to give up their farms to find hope in the cities, to what extent can they start a new life in the cities, who benefits and who loses in the discourse of development, etc. Although it is difficult to grasp the causes of different social problems in Bangkok in a five-day visit, from the smell in the slums, luxurious shopping malls along the sky trains, young girls who dance in go-go bars in Patpong, stories of women workers, etc., the students began to reflect. They began to raise questions, for instance, "Development is for whom?" The following are some of the participants' reflections.

"Tourism," Ping said, "is regarded as an important source of income in many countries. When we rode on the sightseeing boat, I was surprised that most of the passengers were foreigners. Do people who live along the river benefit from it? Instead, it is the company which enjoys the gains while the residents suffer from polluted water and noise. As tourists, do we cause any harm to the residents?"

"During the visit to a women's labour union, they mentioned that [Prime Minister] Thaksin [Shinawatra] was a good businessmen," said Nam. "However, although he didn’t do much for the poor, he ironically gained support from many farmers."

"Seeing how these people live," Alfred said, "made me search within my heart for a word to describe this historical drama. Are these people wretched, or does that bitter smile exhibit contentment and satisfaction with what they have? Questions lead to more questions, and soon I was pondering over the cause of all these. As we moved on, my mind was still at [the slum community of] Klong Toey."

Experiences in Bangkok are not isolated from those of Hong Kong. The working poor share the same bitter experiences. It does not matter whether workers demand that the minimum wage be raised in Bangkok, currently 180 baht (US$4.80) per day, or that a minimum wage be set in Hong Kong: the employers reiterate that they can move their factories to other countries, and ultimately, the workers will lose their jobs. Meanwhile, there is the typical argument that wages are determined by the market, that workers can always find another job if they are not satisfied with the pay and terms of their current job. Free trade serves the employers by helping them exploit vulnerable workers instead of promoting the well-being of the poor.

After the exposure trip, we discovered that transformation had occurred among the participants. When discussing the social welfare system in Hong Kong, they no longer jumped to the conclusion that social welfare recipients are lazy. They began to explore what they can do to respond to poverty in Hong Kong. We believe that people should not stand aloof from the suffering of other people. We are not just youth from Hong Kong; we are also citizens of the world.

We believe it is now time for the students to act during their summer vacation. We will connect their learning from Bangkok to the Hong Kong context. We will study how globalisation and development affect the poor in Hong Kong. We will visit several organisations in Hong Kong which are concerned with social assistance, community redevelopment and globalisation. The participants will analyse the causes of poverty in Hong Kong by linking their thoughts with their experiences in Bangkok. They will amplify their reflections by holding activities in their schools. A public event will also be held in December during the International Human Rights Day Carnival. Even though our strength is very limited—we cannot solve these problems on our own—at least we should show solidarity to those who are being oppressed.