The NGO Hong Kong Unison has decided to disband after 24 years of advocating for the rights of the city’s ethnic minority groups.
After a general meeting held among its members to discuss the dissolution on Friday, group chairwoman Alice Chong Ming-lin said the decision was made as the organisation had accomplished its mission, and dismissed any political or financial reasons.
“When the organisation was first established, the voices of members of ethnic minorities were not heard nor their difficulties, while now there are many organisations serving them and the government has allocated resources to them,” she said.
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“We have achieved our objective.”
Hong Kong was home to nearly 620,000 residents from ethnic minority groups in 2021, accounting for 8.4 per cent of the population.
Most were Filipinos and Indonesians – many of whom worked as domestic helpers – as well as Indians, Nepalis and Pakistanis.
The NGO was established in 2001 by social worker Fermi Wong Wai-fun and incorporated as a charitable organisation in 2005.
Wong resigned as the organisation’s executive director in 2013 citing health issues. Wong, a supporter of the 2014 Occupy movement, moved to Britain in late 2020.
Over the years, the non-profit organisation had promoted racial equality and equal opportunities in social participation, particularly in education, for members belonging to the city’s ethnic minority groups.
The organisation had advocated for a variety of issues, such as opening up mainstream schools to non-Chinese speaking students, improving Chinese language education for pupils of ethnic minorities as well as pushing authorities to open government positions to residents of ethnic minority groups.
The government issued the first thematic report with details of Hong Kong’s ethnic minority population in 2001 after the Unison’s advocacy.
The group also lobbied for a bill against racial discrimination between 2004 and 2006. The Race Discrimination Ordinance was passed in the Legislative Council in July, 2008 and came into effect in 2009.
After two years of advocacy by Unison, the government announced in its 2019 policy address that the Education Bureau would conduct a study to gauge the Chinese language aptitude and learning progress among students from ethnic minority backgrounds.
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