People

Exhausted but not defeated:
Man-hon's mum keeps up 7-year search

by Summer Ha

Seven years of futile search have not undermined Yu Lai Wai-ling’s determination to look for her autistic son who has gone missing across the border in mainland China after an immigration blunder, although he will be legally presumed dead by August.

It was on August 24, 2000 when Man-hon, who has a mental age of two, disappeared across the border. Mrs Yu, 53, has been looking for him ever since, with a hope of getting a definite answer of his fate – whether he is alive or dead.

She finds it hard to accept the common law presumption of his death if there is no evidence suggesting that he is still alive. “Legal death means nothing to me,” Mrs Yu told Varsity in an interview, adding she would continue to look for her son. Man-hon is 22 years old if he is still alive.

“I can’t give up. I just can’t do so, no matter how exhausted I am.”
On the day of his disappearance, Man-hon ran away from his mother at Yau Ma Tei MTR station and travelled all his way to Lo Wu. He then slipped through the border but was caught by Shenzhen officers, who later referred him back to Hong Kong immigration officers for identity verification. But Man-hon, who was 15 years old at the time, was sent back to the mainland authorities after the Hong Kong officers failed to verify that he was a Hong Kong resident.

His disappearance hit the headlines. More than 7,000 Shenzhen and Guangdong police officers were deployed to look for the boy on August 29, five days after he had gone missing. But Mrs Yu said the search lasted for “just a short period of time”.

Colleagues of Man-hon’s father from the Housing Department later voluntarily helped her to search for the boy in Shenzhen. The Hong Kong government paid Man-hon’s parents a sum of compensation in 2003 in an out-of-court settlement over their claim of negligence on the part of the administration.
Mrs Yu declined to reveal the exact amount, saying the government had required it to be kept confidential. The compensation reportedly covered only the parents’ anguish.

The government could face separate damage claims if Man-hon is not being found by August this year when he would be presumed dead.

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