What is discrimination? Are you a victim, or are you a discriminator? These are very relevant questions indeed. Let me begin by giving you a bit of background.

We have three anti-discrimination laws covering gender, pregnancy, marital status, disabilities and family status. We do not have a specific law on race. We do, however, have the BORO covering the public sector and there is a general prohibition against discrimination which includes race.

During the scrutiny of the BORO, it was decided that the Bill be made applicable to the public sector only, thus dropping the private sector out of the picture. It was agreed that for the anti-discrimination measures to operate properly in the private sector, specific anti discrimination provisions (such as those that we now have for gender) need to be put in place.

As you will see from the current laws, they define discrimination, the activities affected and the detriment when it occurs. The tragic thing was while the BORO had been narrowed down, the government's memory was short and they forgot to enact specific legislations filling in the gaps.

The first major rights covenant to apply to Hong Kong, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, was extended to Hong Kong in 1969. The others are the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. These later Covenants are specifically incorporated in the Basic Law. All these covenants carry prohibition against race discrimination.

The Race Covenant requires the government to prohibit discrimination and protect victims. We cannot prohibit or protect without legislation.

Various UN Human Rights Committees have over a period of time stated specifically that HK should legislate against race discrimination and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights specifically stated that HK was in default.

While the government has provided a guarantee of its commitment to the international community, it has only met the guarantee by extending a blank cheque to its own community.

Discrimination is measured on the basis of a comparator. In the case of a woman, she is discriminated against if compared to a man she is treated less favourably, whether it be access to education or a job. The spirit of the provisions is to require the decisions to be made objectively and not arbitrarily. This is the best way to achieve results and competitiveness in our human resources. We get the best person for the job. It is a level playing field issue and it is a system based on meritocracy.

Often, people feel that they themselves are not the victims, so why bother. It is someone else's problem. I violently disagree with the assumption that it does not affect you and I. First, discrimination is not a minority issue. There is no majority free from discrimination. It affects everybody and it is everybody's business. I can be discriminated against on the ground of age, race or gender at any time at any place and so can you. Everybody can be a victim and that is why the law must be in place to protect all, not just the perceived minority. The law is a social contract for reciprocity of treatment and mutual respect within a community.

You are aware of our action against the government regarding the high school allocation of school places. Nearly all the people I had spoken to felt it only affected girls. The system was used to prop up the top 30% boys and to put down the top girls as well as the lower 70% boys! As regards the girls being put down, many people felt that there was no absolute equality anyway and boys do mature late. What about the lower 70% boys? They have been abandoned by the system and sadly also abandoned by the community because nobody felt they counted. They are not important. It is not an issue for discussion and therefore even when I raised it, many chose not to register the issue. The victims are not so limited and in this case not limited to one gender. It is only limited when we choose to limit our vision.

Just yesterday I caught myself saying that we are all human. Human nature is so frail and our minds play tricks on us all the time. I was told a person suffering from blindness dislikes blacks. You would ask why so when one cannot see? Discrimination is in the mind. It is the mindset that must be changed.

We think others are different. We see differences. Differences and communication difficulties give rise to misunderstanding.

Each one of us is fully capable of discrimination against others particularly when we feel threatened and insecure. A case in point is our discrimination against new immigrants from the mainland.

While the area of race is not within the jurisdiction of the EOC, we have received complaints on a variety of grounds covering abusive language, racist ads, unequal employment terms, refusal to provide taxi services, charging more, all race related.

Now, let me approach the issue from a different angle. As Hong Kong becomes increasingly globalised, the ethnic make-up of its community will become more and more significant. We have several kinds of Chinese alone: Hong Kong, Mainland, Taipei, not to mention ABCs and BBCs. Hong Kong is also home to a very diverse range of communities from the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Nepal, Pakistan, UK, Japan, Europe, America, Canada, Australia, NZ, Africa, Korea, India… We should regard ourselves as global citizens.

The racial diversity provides a unique value. It is our link to our trading partners outside Hong Kong and it strengthens Hong Kong as a global trader.

Hong Kong does not have agriculture or minerals. For an immigrant and refugee city, we have human beings, 6.7 mil strong. Human capital is the only asset Hong Kong has. It is the most important asset in developing Hong Kong into a knowledge driven community. Providing an equal opportunities environment is an investment in human capital and is our gateway to the world.

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