The Policy Address to be delivered on Oct 6 will be the fifth, and final one of the present administration. It will have many areas to cover, and a consultation exercise is now underway. No issue, however, is more pressing than child protection, given the levels of abuse being faced on a daily basis by the most vulnerable members of society.
The Social Welfare Department regularly flags up the latest situation, which is consistently alarming. Since 1996, its Child Protection Registry has published an annual statistical report, and this provides general information on children who have been harmed or maltreated, or are at risk of such. Between 1999 and 2019, the SWD reported a rise of 75 percent in child abuse cases, with an average of six deaths a year.
The SWD, following the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has applied to Hong Kong since 1994, defines a child as a person aged under 18. It describes child abuse as “any act of commission or omission that endangers or impairs a child’s physical or psychological health and development”. And, as the CPR’s statistical report for 2020 illustrates, the SWD has its work cut out for it, and the criminal law is not providing those in danger with the protections they need.
Child abuse is an evil that must be purged, and this year’s Policy Address will hopefully be the vehicle for long-overdue reform. If children are not properly protected, their lives may be blighted forever, and society as a whole will be the loser
In 2020, the SWD received 940 new reports of child abuse, with 57 percent involving girls. Whereas 41.4 percent of the cases involved physical abuse, 33.3 percent involved sexual abuse, 21.4 percent involved neglect, 2.9 percent involved multiple abuse, and 1.1 percent involved psychological abuse. Among the biggest contributory factors were the lack of family and related support systems (45.5 percent), easy access of nonfamily members to victims (29.6 percent), financial difficulties and unemployment (26.1 percent), perpetrators facing stress and family crises (19.4 percent), housing conditions (16.2 percent), and lack of community resources, such as day care centers (7.3 percent).
In 2021, moreover, the situation is getting worse. In the first quarter, the CPR recorded 279 child abuse cases, up from 166 in the same period last year, with girls again being the primary victims. As in 2020, the breakdown shows that physical abuse loomed large, accounting for 113 cases, followed by sexual abuse, with 86 cases; neglect, with 67 cases; multiple abuse, with 10 cases; and psychological abuse, with three cases.
However, although instructive, the CPR’s statistics do not provide a full picture. Most child abuse cases never surface, and its victims suffer in silence, not knowing who can help them. As the SWD points out, under the system of voluntary reporting, “both family members of the victims and relevant professionals (e.g., doctors, teachers and social workers) do not have a statutory duty to report suspected abuse cases, hindering early identification and intervention to protect vulnerable children”.
In many ways, the early reporting of child abuse is the key, and can prevent tragedies occurring. Recent court cases, including that of the 5-year-old girl who died in 2018 after months of sustained abuse by her parents, have highlighted instances where professionals have failed to follow up on child abuse situations, while relatives and neighbors have simply looked the other way. This, however, can no longer be tolerated, and, as recommended in 2013 by the Committee on the Rights of the Child, which oversees the UNCRC, it is necessary to legislate for mandatory reporting in Hong Kong.
A clear obligation needs to be imposed on the public, including professionals who work with children, relatives and neighbors, to report child abuse of which they become aware. If they have reasonable grounds for believing that a child is being abused or neglected, and is, or may be, in need of protection, they must act, and turning a blind eye can no longer be an option. The types of reportable abuse and neglect cases include those involving physical, sexual and emotional abuse, together with child neglect and exposure to family violence.
Where child abuse is concerned, the law must make everybody aware that they are indeed their “brother’s keeper”. At the same time, to allay concerns, the law will also need to stipulate that, if child abuse reporters act in good faith, they will not be liable to civil, criminal or administrative proceedings, and that, wherever necessary, their identity will be protected.
Although, moreover, the child cruelty law contained in the Offences Against the Person Ordinance (Sect. 27) is effective when it comes to prosecuting cases of physical abuse, particularly when there are obvious injuries, it is woefully inadequate when it comes to psychological abuse. If the child is mentally abused, whether by bullying, indifference or scapegoating, tangible evidence is lacking and prosecutions are almost unheard of, despite the consequences often being devastating. In the United Kingdom, this problem has been largely resolved by the so-called Cinderella Law, which makes child cruelty prosecutable irrespective of “whether the suffering or injury is of a physical or psychological nature”, and Hong Kong, whose own law is based on the English model, should now follow suit.
As fundamental reform of the child protection laws is now imperative, the government must, as the Law Reform Commission of Hong Kong, after 13 years deliberation, proposed in 2019, also bring forward proposals to create a new offense of failing to protect a child or vulnerable person where the victim’s death or serious harm results from an unlawful act or neglect. This would, for example, catch the type of situation which resulted in the death in 2013 of 5-year-old Yeung Chi-wai, who died after taking drugs he found lying around at home. That a carer turned a blind eye to a child’s plight, or did not bother to check if it was all right, can be no defense. When this law was first mooted in the UK, it was, given its urgency, fast-tracked through Parliament, in 2004. After 15 years, and several tragedies, no further delays can be tolerated here.
As, moreover, the Law Reform Commission acknowledged in 2019, the internet poses huge dangers to children. Firm responses, therefore, are now required, including an offense of “sexual grooming” to protect the child from sexual predators online. The sending of sexual messages to a child online must also be criminalized, together with the exposure of children to internet pornography, most obviously by imposing age-verification techniques upon the online providers. Such laws are not controversial and should be easy to enact, and will be widely welcomed.
Although, in line with the UNCRC’s Article 19, which requires the elimination of all forms of physical and mental abuse, corporal punishment has been banned in the schools and correctional institutions, it lingers on in the home. It is often excessive, irrational and unexplained, and causes untold damage, including depression, trauma and even self-harm. After Nepal banned corporal punishment in all situations in 2018, Japan followed suit in 2020, and the Republic of Korea in 2021, and it is now proscribed in 62 countries altogether. In 2021, therefore, Hong Kong must now catch up, as domestic child abuse is intolerable in any civilized society.
Child abuse is an evil that must be purged, and this year’s Policy Address will hopefully be the vehicle for long-overdue reform. If children are not properly protected, their lives may be blighted forever, and society as a whole will be the loser. Children, like adults, have inalienable rights, and these must finally be recognized on Oct 6.
The author is an honorary consultant to the Child Protection Institute of Against Child Abuse, and was previously the director of public prosecutions of the Hong Kong SAR.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.