Refugee Protection

The term ‘Vietnamese boat people’ has become an historical signifier of the fall of Saigon and the massive exodus of people from Vietnam. According to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) statistics, the total number of Vietnamese boat arrivals in asylum countries between 1975 and 1997 stood at 839,228 people¹. Of those who embarked on the treacherous journey, an estimated 10% died at sea².

In 1989, 74 countries signed the Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA), designed to halt the movement of boat people from Vietnam. Under the CPA, asylum seekers were no longer given automatic refugee status. Instead, they were required to undergo status evaluations.

Today, the bulk of the stateless Vietnamese in the Philippines and Thailand are those who were not recognized as refugees under the CPA’s screening process.

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¹ See Cumulative Indo-Chinese Arrivals, Departures and Residual Caseload, 1975 - 1997, reproduced in C. Robinson, Terms of Refuge: The Indochinese Exodus and the International Response (London: Zed Books, 1998), p. 294.
² Ibid, p.59. See also B Grant, The Boat People, (New York: Penguin Books, 1979), p. 79.