In October 2023, approximately 14,700 asylum seekers were in Hong Kong, mostly from South and Southeast Asia, with the rest from Africa and the Middle East.
In his Lenten pastoral letter this year, Cardinal Stephen Chow SJ, urged people to journey together with displaced people in Hong Kong and other kinds of voiceless population. In fact, due to the difficult situation of asylum seekers, Catholic groups, like MercyHK, have been showing concern for them.
MercyHK has created a community for female asylum seekers with kids to share their problems every week. In the past year, it’s helped about 20 infants of single mothers get baptised at its centre with special permission of the Church, as getting the necessary paperwork for baptism can be hard for them. The group also gives rental subsidies to asylum seekers if they have proved their financial difficulties to the ISS (International Social Service).
Father John Wotherspoon, the Oblate missionary and founder of MercyHK, has been supporting asylum seekers since 1985, most of whom were Vietnamese boat people. He observed the challenges they faced. Specifically, he has been urging single asylum seekers who haven’t received refugee certification and might have left their home country due to economic reasons to return home. To facilitate this, he provides a small amount of money—typically several thousand Hong Kong dollars—to help them start small businesses.
Having visited Africa several times, he also understands that the situation in their countries of origin is not good. “I am painfully aware that the economic conditions in Africa are terrible. It’s getting harder to find work. More and more people struggle to have food each day. So I have mixed feelings about encouraging them or helping them to go back because they’re going back to misery,” he said.
“But on the other hand, staying here is worse because they are not allowed to work and get into trouble with drugs or other crimes. So even though it is economically terrible in their own country, I think it is better they go back there,” he pointed out.
I am painfully aware that the economic conditions in Africa are terrible. It’s getting harder to find work. More and more people struggle to have food each day. So I have mixed feelings about encouraging them or helping them to go back because they’re going back to misery
Fatehr Wotherspoon
Father Wotherspoon explained that while waiting for their refugee status assessment, some women may experience abuse or abandonment by men. As a result, they might give birth to children and subsequently find themselves as single mothers. He said: “These women don’t even consider abortion for the sake of their child. They care for their child even without a father and husband. I feel sympathetic towards such women and MercyHK would work hard to help them.”
According to him, these cases are extremely complicated because some of the women already have children back home and face rejection from relatives who do not want any more children. Single mothers struggle to look after their own children already and then pay bills for education, food, and medicine in Hong Kong.
He understands why they want to stay in Hong Kong, where they get subsidised medical care, education for their children, and so on, even though it’s difficult to stay here.
He knows the Philippine consulate has been trying to encourage single mothers to go back home but to no avail. “Who could ask a mother to reduce their children’s living standards?” he said.
Single mothers may, however, be vulnerable to unscrupulous men or could be tricked into drug trafficking or illegal activities as a consequence of the difficult situation here.
In addition to being exposed to risk and psychological problems, Father Wotherspoon feels living in Hong Kong can also cause children of single mothers to feel like they don’t belong here, whereas they would have more support in their own countries.
In addition to being exposed to risk and psychological problems, Father Wotherspoon feels living in Hong Kong can also cause children of single mothers to feel like they don’t belong here, whereas they would have more support in their own countries
For the missionary, a practical solution for the Hong Kong government is to give a subsidy through the supervision of an international agency for asylum seekers willing to go back home, which the British government used many years ago. He pointed out that there is a financial incentive for the government as that would also save subsidies for the daily lives of the asylum seekers here.
Susith Perera, a candidate for permanent deacon, who has been a volunteer working closely with Father Wotherspoon to help the asylum seekers for years, shared that he would encourage them to follow the legal procedures of the Immigration Department by reporting to the Department on time. Since the recent strict immigration policy means asylum seekers can be detained and deported if the Immigration Department considers they have no valid reason to entertain their cases, he understands the dilemma asylum seekers are in.
While the International Social Services offers a monthly allowance to each family, along with food coupons and accommodation allowances, many asylum seekers’ families are tempted to find illegal work for a variety of reasons, which has led them into deep trouble, severely affecting their children’s well-being.
While helping asylum seekers find the proper channels to seek help in Hong Kong, he often invited them to think about the futility of staying here, separated from their families and without a future, and guiding them to reflect on the true meaning of this earthly life. It is also sad to see that some asylum seekers have died on this foreign land after spending years here, and he is keeping the cremains of two of them for further processing.
During Lent, the Integral Human Development Commission drafted a prayer guide for the Stations of the Cross in which the plight of asylum seekers or refugees was mentioned in every station. According to Jackie Hung Ling-yu, project officer, while people think about the struggles Jesus Christ faced on the Way of the Cross, many people throughout the world have left their homes due to wars, religious persecutions, and other reasons, and their difficult journeys seem to continue for a lifetime. “This is the way to make the sufferings of Jesus worthy,” she said. SE
