Society & Politics

Education expert and legislator call for conditional working rights of asylum seekers in supporting their own education expenses and daily expenses Isabella Ng Fung-sheung, assistant professor at The Education University of Hong Kong, volunteers at the Hong Kong Society for Asylum Seekers and Refugees. She said only one out of 170 asylum seekers can successfully make a non-refoulement claim so that they are not forced to leave the city. This process might take years, and their children may be deprived of their rights to education during the wait. Asylum seekers are not allowed to work in Hong Kong. Each person receives $1200 a month in food stamps from the government, which is enough for staple food but not much else, according to Dr. Ng. And while their children can go to school for free, Dr. Ng said asylum seekers often find it difficult to pay for school uniforms and books. Although most schools reimburse the parents for their expenses, they do have to pay upfront and then claim the money back with receipts. "Some families are not able to reach here for weekly gathering as they can't afford the transportation expenses," said Dr. Ng. Language barrier is also a major obstacle for young asylum seekers who desire education in Hong Kong, Dr. Ng stated. " The teacher kept telling me that this child cannot speak Chinese, can she understand at least one word of Chinese, if not, this child is so difficult to manage," said Dr. Ng when she recalled her experience in helping child asylum seekers searching for schools. " Local schools accept few non-Chinese speaking children," Dr. Ng says. " I tried to look for a kindergarten for a daughter of an asylum seeker once. She had a Hong Kong identity card, but eight out of ten schools …

More than 60% of the meals ordered through online food order platforms were more expensive than restaurants' takeaway, with price markup up to 86%, the Consumer Council said on Wednesday. After 91 trial purchases from nine food order platforms in September, the Council found problems including hidden surcharges, unilaterally order cancellation, late delivery, food leaking and double charges. The prices of over half of the food on four aggregate order platforms such as Foodpanda and UberEATS were about 30% higher than takeaway prices, while all the food on three eatery chain platforms including McDelivery were marked up by 4% to 86% with an average of 30%, said the Council. The Council's Chief Executive Gilly Wong Fung-han said at Wednesday's press conference that they would not advise on prices, and markup was understandable if people accepted paying more for convenience. Ho Chung-yin, a 32-year-old data analyst working in Central said she had used Foodpanda four times and knew the prices were much higher. "I only order online when I don't have time to eat out," she said. Testers of the Council found five out of 13 orders were canceled without remedy when ordering on 51WM, an aggregate platform. UberEATS even listed restaurants that had already folded or were being decorated without any notice, testers said. Customer Service Director of 51WM Dickson Lo told The Young Reporter that order cancellations were all done solely by restaurants, probably because they were understaffed or the locations were too far away. "We cannot improve the problem in the long run," Lo said, "because it is a fundamental problem resulting from restaurant's own uncertainties." The Council urged traders to be responsible and delineate every party's responsibility clearly, and provide means of contacts for inquiries with immediate assistance, while three aggregate platforms still have no contact hotline. …

The Pride Parade 2017 kicked off at two pm today, with hanging lucky scrolls in Victoria Park, signifying the smoothing out of the path, for people of all sexualities. The slogan for this year's parade is "turn the tide, walk with pride". Gary Fan Kwok-wai, current member of the Sai Kung District Council, believes that sexual minority rights should be legally protected. "Everyone should be equally treated, including sexual minorities," said Fan. Professor Alfred Chan, the chairperson of the Equal Opportunities Commission, said there will be legal consultations concerning transgender rights next year. Professor Chan said everyone, especially the government, should cooperate to achieve equality in society. "Everyone is born equal," said Kwok Ka-ki, member of the Legislative Council. However, Kwok thinks that the road to equality for the LGBTQI community is always not an easy one in Hong Kong.

Carrie Lam, the city's Chief Executive, announced in the latest Policy Address the setting up of a $12 billion Hostel Development Fund, offering subsidies for universities to construct student hostels. Lam said the lack of on-campus accommodations could hinder international students from studying in Hong Kong, thus making the local tertiary campuses and learning environment less international. Lam believed that establishing the development fund could speed up the executive procedures. The University of Hong Kong, which has the highest percentage of international students of 39% among all University Grants Committee(UGC) funded universities, accepted less than half of international students who applied for dormitories in the year 2014-2015. Meanwhile, all international students applied for hostels in Lingnan University were accepted. However, only 15% of applicants are international students, which is the lowest among local universities. Hence, the "internationalisation" of a university campus has no direct relationship to the provision of residential halls. The "internationalisation" of a university campus has no direct relationship to the provision of residential halls. "The policy would help to attract more international student only if they are prioritised to apply for on-campus accommodation," said Annie Chan, associate professor of Lingnan University. Kevin Yue, Resident Master of one of Hong Kong Baptist University's halls, pointed out that universities' policies on arranging residential hall units to local and international students affect the effectiveness bringing diversity to the campuses, especially when there is not enough dormitories even for local students. Less than half of the 63 international students studying in Hong Kong Baptist University reached by The Young Reporter said they would study in Hong Kong without a dormitory place Out of 63 international students reached, 48 percent of them claimed that they would come to Hong Kong to study even without a dormitory. "I would still come to Hong …