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Author Topic: Poverty in Hong Kong
Willowdale Wizard
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posted 10 March 2004 09:30 AM      Profile for Willowdale Wizard   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
reuters, mar 10

quote:
Digging through stinking heaps of garbage in one rubbish bin after another, a small boy stops occasionally to pluck out a prize - bunches of old newspapers or cardboard.

"I'll be able to sell them for a few Hong Kong dollars (20-30 U.S. cents ... If I don't do this, how can we have enough money for milk powder for my brother and sister?"

Chun is picking through garbage dumps in Hong Kong, one of the wealthiest cities in the world.

Years of economic stagnation have widened Hong Kong's rich-poor gap and unemployment levels remain among the highest in Asia.

Social workers estimate nearly one in seven people in the city, or almost one million people, are living below the poverty line, including nearly 400,000 children.

"Poverty is seriously affecting children in Hong Kong, leading to problems such as malnutrition. Our situation is a bit like that in third-world countries or developing countries," said social worker Sze Lai-shan.

About 290,000 households in Hong Kong scrape by on social welfare and housing assistance. But the government, battling a ballooning deficit, has been cutting expenditure, including welfare payments to each claimant.



From: england (hometown of toronto) | Registered: Jan 2003  |  IP: Logged
NDP Newbie
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Babbler # 5089

posted 10 March 2004 10:58 AM      Profile for NDP Newbie     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
And of course, it's controlled by CCP cronies.

The same bastards who make Chinese families pay for secondary education.

Admittedly though, poverty was still a problem under British rule, something I did not know until 2000, when I read something about a family of 4 sharing a single bedroom due to poverty/


From: Cornwall, ON | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged

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