The Economy of Seeking Asylum in the Global City
| Author | Francesco Vecchio |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12126 |
| Published date | 01 February 2016 |
| Date | 01 February 2016 |
The Economy of Seeking Asylum in the
Global City
Francesco Vecchio*
ABSTRACT
This article explores asylum seeker survival strategies and agency in relation to the
structural, post-industrial conditions that have emerged in Hong Kong. The focus is on
the livelihoods of asylum seekers within spaces of illegality and social exclusion, how
such spaces are formed, and how asylum seekers exploit local condition s to establish
profitable networks across borders. The article considers asylum seekers’engagement in
income-generating activities and the importance of legal status in the sectors of the
economy in which they most often work: recycling and trading. Far from being a
burden to society or opportunistic deviants taking advantage of Hong Kong’seconomic
prosperity, as they are normally depicted in public discours e, asylum seekers are
economically productive. They act in economic spaces in which disadvantaged strata of
the local resident population organize their means of survival, thereby improving the
economic opportunities for locals.
INTRODUCTION
Considerable numbers of sub-Saharan African and South Asian people have been seeking asy-
lum in Hong Kong in recent years. About 6000 of them are presently seeking protection at
either the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees or the Immigration Department, or
both. The former carries out refugee status determination procedures in lieu of the Hong Kong
government –Hong Kong is not party to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refu-
gees (Refugee Convention). The latter screens applications under the 1984 Convention against
Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Pending the deter-
mination of such claims, the Hong Kong government affords no legal status or economic rights
to people who claim they would be subject to persecution were they to return to their country
(Loper, 2010). However, asylum seekers are provided with minimal assistance, financial or
otherwise.
Indeed, the government-sponsored support system offers in-kind assistance that is inadequate
to meet the needs of the asylum seeker population (Vecchio, forthcoming). Other than limited
cash reimbursements to cover the costs of travel to attend interviews with case officers, asylum
seekers are not provided with money; yet they require financial support to pay bills and buy the
daily necessities that are not readily available through government assistance. The asylum seeker
population is consequently forced into a state of economic precariousness and subsistence living.
It is within this context that many asylum seekers seek work opportunities in the local informal
economy.
* Monash University, Australia.
doi: 10.1111/imig.12126
©2013 The Author
International Migration ©2013 IOM
International Migration Vol. 54 (1) 2016
ISSN 0020-7985Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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