Canada: 75 Fujianese women facing deportation need your help

Between July to September, 1999, four ships holding a total of 599 Chinese people arrived on Canada's west coast: 96 minors, 90 women and 403 men.
The Canadian government's response was to detain most of them, try to issue exclusion orders (one of which was recently overturned), and push them through an accelerated (fastrack) refugee claim process, which was already stacked against them given the corporate media's extremely hostile and racist portrayals of these unfortunate people.

To date, 6 people have been granted refugee status, 251 people have had negative decisions, 14 people have withdrawn their request for refuge, and 67 have abandoned their claims. Some more hearings will take place in April,

but the government has been sending a strong message that it intends to deport many people soon.

The punishments for people who are returned to China have reportedly become harsher lately--they potentially face more than a year's imprisonment for leaving China, depending on their local situation.

While there were initially 96 minors, many of them have run away. The rest are under the care of the Ministry of Families and Children--kept in Dogwood Lodge (a group home), a Youth Detention Centre, and a few may be in foster care.

Most of the children were unaccompanied, but four mothers who came with their children on the ships have been kept in prison for almost eight months, and are only allowed to see their children once every two weeks.