香港難民問題日趨嚴重 拒絕成爲難民港

While Europe grapples with an influx of people desperate to escape fighting in Syria, asylum seekers from Asian nations such as Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Vietnam are flocking to Hong Kong, along with a sprinkling from Africa.

歐洲在大量涌入的拼命逃離戰爭的敘利亞難民問題上絞盡腦汁，而來自亞洲國家，如孟加拉國，印度，巴基斯坦和越南的尋求庇護者，以及一些非洲人都涌向了香港。

Hong Kong has approved just 52 of more than 8,000 claims since 2009.

香港自2009年以來僅在8000多名庇護申請者中批准了52名。

There are more than 11,000 asylum seekers in the Asian financial hub, some still uncertain about their fate after waiting for more than 15 years.

這個亞洲金融中心擁有超過11000名尋求庇護者，其中一些人等待了超過15年仍不確定其命運。

"Our future is already gone, so we are thinking of our kids' future," said Adjouma Ibrahim, chairman of the Refugee Union, who has been in Hong Kong for 11 years. "Our kids are stateless. We don't have travel documents - nothing," he told Reuters.

“我們的未來已經消逝，所以我們在考慮孩子的未來，”在香港生活了11年的難民聯盟主席Adjouma Ibrahim說道，“我們的孩子沒有國籍。我們沒有旅行證件--什麼都沒有，”他接受路透社採訪時表示。

Ibrahim is from Togo in west Africa, and his son and daughter, despite both having been born in Hong Kong, are among the more than 580 refugee children denied the right of abode, making it impossible for young people to get jobs or leave.

Ibrahim來自西非的多哥，他的兒子和女兒雖然出生在香港，卻是和超過580名難民兒童一樣沒有居留權，因此這些年輕人無法找到工作或離開。

Hong Kong pays 30 percent of the costs for refugee children to attend school, but few parents are able to pay the rest, as they cannot legally work while waiting for their status to be approved.

香港政府支付難民兒童上學30%的學費，但極少家長支付得起剩餘的部分，因爲他們不能夠在等待身份被批准的同時合法地工作。

"One of the very negative parts of the system here in Hong Kong is children of asylum seekers and refugees," said Mark Daly, a principal at law firm Daly and Associates, which focuses on human rights.

“香港系統最負面的地方之一就是庇護尋求者和難民的兒童，”專注於人權問題的律師事務所--帝理律師行的首席律師Mark Daly說。

Despite being born in Hong Kong and fluent in both English and the Cantonese regional dialect, they are not allowed to work, Daly said.

Daly表示，雖然出生於香港，並會說流利的英語和粵語，但是他們仍然不準工作。

The refugees have become a sensitive topic for residents and politicians, with media often blaming them for a spurt in crime. Such portrayals feed prejudice, said Rizwan Ullah, an educational adviser of the Pakistani Students' Association in Hong Kong.

難民成爲了居民和政客的敏感話題，媒體經常指責他們是犯罪高潮的始作俑者。不過香港巴基斯坦學生聯盟的教育顧問Rizwan Ullah表示，這樣的描述是充滿偏見的。

"These stereotypes bring prejudice, and that brings discrimination," he said. "These guys are not criminals. They just want a better situation."

“這些刻板印象帶來偏見，而偏見則帶來歧視，”他說，“這些人不是罪犯。他們只希望過得好些。”

Politicians have pushed for tighter curbs after the government adopted a screening mechanism in 2014 to select those meeting the refugee criteria set out in international law. However, in a legislative document this year, it acknowledged the need to streamline the lengthy screening process. Over the past five years, it has more than doubled the number of staff handling claims.

政府在2014年實行了篩選機制，選擇那些符合國際法條件的難民，政客們從此推動了更嚴格的限制措施。然而，今年的立法文件承認了簡化冗長的篩選流程的必要性。過去五年中，處理庇護申請的員工數量翻了超過一倍。