Human Rights Consciousness among Welfare Recipients in Hong Kong

It is often argued that Asian societies are different from Western countries, as far as human rights awareness is concerned. It is often deemed that human rights consciousness remains under-developed in Asian states. Has there been a rise in human rights awareness in Asia in the past decade? To answer this question, this presentation looks at human rights consciousness and knowledge among welfare recipients in Hong Kong, China. Numbers of welfare recipients have been growing in Hong Kong in the past years. After the financial crisis of 1997, the government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region introduced a series of welfare-to-work programs with an intent to reduce increasing welfare rolls and move people back to work. Recently, the government launched the Enhanced Community Work Experience and Training Program (ECW) which combines work requirements with training. The issue of rights versus responsibilities often arises in Hong Kong: welfare recipients are in the unique position of asserting their right to welfare while the government is strongly demanding work compliance from them. In actuality, are there conflicts between rights assertion and societal demand for self reliance among welfare recipients? The respondents of our study come from several welfare-to-work programs including Enhanced Community Work Experience and Training Program (ECW) and Community Work (CW) in Hong Kong. With the aid of a longitudinal survey of ECW and CW recipients, this presentation looks at the how welfare recipients view these programs and whether they feel their right to welfare is compromised by the work requirements of the program.