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Children’s health may deteriorate in Hong Kong camps

There is increasing concern among refugee organisations about the long-term effects on the psychological health of Vietnamese children detained in camps in Hong Kong and now threatened with imminent repatriation.

Refugee Concern, an aid organisation which works in the Hong Kong camps, highlighted the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder among Vietnamese children in their October newsletter.

They report children becoming increasingly depressed and anxious as rumours of their families’ repatriation spread. They quote a 1992 study of camp children which states that ‘the use of force in the repatriation of children could have very serious consequences for their well-being. The violence and fear that are likely to characterise such an event may do irreparable harm to children who are already psychologically wounded’.

Added to these concerns is the recent decision to withdraw secondary education services from children in the camps. The move is part of a gradual withdrawal of camp services which is being used to encourage the remaining Vietnamese boat people to return, some of whom have spent up to seven years in the camps.

As well as concerns that children will miss out on their education due to the withdrawal, there is also the problem that they will be left with nothing to do all day which will add to their stress.

But asylum-seekers will not give up easily. With the backing of refugee and human rights organisations, they are organising classes with voluntary teachers from the camp community.

There are over 20,000 Vietnamese boat people still in the three camps in Hong Kong. All of these have been refused asylum status by the Hong Kong authorities and the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR). The authorities do not believe the remaining boat people have a well-founded fear of persecution should they return to Vietnam, and the UNHCR has agreed with the Hong Kong authorities that they will pay a sum of money for resettlement to each person who returns.

The final date for the repatriation of all the remaining boat people has been set for the end of 1996. The reduction of facilities by the UNHCR, which controls the funding of most of the non-governmental organisations working in the camps, began over two years ago. It is said to have commented that ‘the sense of community which has grown up must be dissolved.’

Arts and crafts, magazines, adult education, and counselling have already been withdrawn. Save the Children left in March and medical services have been reduced to the bare minimum.