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The government yesterday announced the details of Race Discrimination Bill which would extend the jurisdiction of the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC).

The announcement follows public consultation on the legislative proposals between September 2004 and February 2005.

The bill will be published in the Gazette on December 1 and will be introduced in the Legislative Council on December 13.

Carrie Lam, Permanent Secretary for Home Affairs said Hong Kong had an obligation under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination to prohibit and eliminate racial discrimination.

The government will introduce the bill to make racial discrimination, harassment and vilification unlawful and to prohibit serious racial vilification, she said.

The bill would also allow the EOC to cover racial discrimination apart from its present jurisdiction on three discriminations.

The bill is largely modelled on the three existing anti-discrimination ordinances handled by the EOC, namely the Sex Discrimination Ordinance, the Disability Discrimination Ordinance and the Family Status Discrimination Ordinance, she said.

The functions and powers of the EOC were similar to those the EOC had under the three anti-discrimination ordinances, she said.

When a person files a complaint to the EOC, the EOC would conduct a formal investigation, then mediate the case or apply for a civil litigation for the person in some serious cases, she said.

The EOC would be given more than HK$10 million fund this year to start work on the new bill, she said.

Types of discrimination

The bill defines racial discrimination in the form of direct or indirect discrimination, she said.

Direct discrimination occurs when, for example, an employer refuses to consider a job application from a non-Chinese candidate who is equally qualified as other Chinese applicants.

The less obvious indirect discrimination occurs when, in another case, when an employer recruits a cleaner, an applicant is required to pass a written Chinese test, which would be hard for non-ethnic Chinese to meet the requirement, she said.

She said the bill prescribed six areas of activities applicable to both public and private sectors in which racial discrimination is rendered unlawful such as in employment, education, and provision of goods, facilities, services and premises.

The bill seeks to balance safeguarding the rights of ethnic groups and individual rights but the bill allows for some exceptions when an individual's privacy or freedom of choice was involved, she said.

For example, employers could engage a domestic helper of a particular ethnicity to his or her home, she said.

Native English Teachers working for the Education and Manpower Bureau would also be exempted.

On education she said the bill has "no affirmative action" and would not require schools to change arrangements in holidays or medium of instruction to cater for students of any racial group.

Fermi Wong, Executive Director of Hong Kong Unison expressed worries over the new bill.

She said the bill exempting the medium of instruction at school would give a very low protection to children of ethnic minorities.

She said the biggest problem faced by ethnic minorities was communication with local people, so the exemption of the use of language in the bill could not help those children.

She also said that her group would organize a march on December 17 at 2 pm in Central's Edinburgh Place to get her voice heard. She, however, expressed hope that the lawmakers would review the bill.

"We want to have good relationship with other people. But we want to be respected," she said.

"Maybe the local people do not understand culture," she added.

Society for Community Organization community organizer Annie Lin said religious discrimination existed in Hong Kong, especially after the 9/11 terrorists' attack in 2001.

Lin said certain proposals of the bill, including the prohibition of knowing Chinese as job requirement, might help in tackling the unemployment situation of ethnic minority.

She said the proposals lacked special measures in helping the minorities integrating with local community and needed details to promote racial harmony.

Chairperson of the EOC Raymond Tang welcomed the start of the legislative process for the bill at a press release.

The EOC has started laying the groundwork through discussion with their stakeholders to prepare for drafting the relevant Codes of Practice and best practice guidelines, he said.

According to the 2001 Population Census about 5 per cent of Hong Kong's population are ethnic minorities, of which about 50 per cent are foreign domestic helpers.