Torture victims seeking asylum in Hong Kong for nine years to settle in Canada
Africans who sought asylum in Hong Kong for nine years in vain are accepted by Ottawa within a year of lodging refugee applications
Two torture victims from Africa who have been seeking asylum in Hong Kong for the past nine years have been granted refugee status in Canada within a year of applying.
The plight of the two men highlights the "failing" screening process for torture claimants in the city, says Patricia Ho, a human-rights lawyer with Daly and Associates.
"We submitted exactly the same documents as we did to the Hong Kong government, if not more for the Hong Kong government," Ho said.
"It says a lot that after over nine sessions of interviews [over 36 hours] the Hong Kong government rejected Yaovi's claim, while the Canadian consulate's interview was just 15 minutes long," she said.
She said Nayo Komlan, 30, and Yaovi Ditonne, 32, were scheduled to fly to Canada this week. She has withdrawn the applications before the Hong Kong government. One case had been rejected and was being appealed while the other was still pending.
"They needed to prove the Hong Kong government can't protect them," Ho said. "The failure of the system, the low rates of recognition for torture claims, and the terrifying ISS [social services] system … They were quite satisfied Hong Kong wasn't offering alternatives for them."
The two men, former election monitors, were fleeing torture and persecution by the military dictatorship that has ruled Togo since 1967.
