MR CHAN KIN-POR (in Cantonese): President, the problem of child abuse in Hong Kong shows a worsening trend. Apart from the occurrence of collective child abuse cases in some residential child care centres, there have even been two to three deaths from child abuse in recent years.
In fact, according to the statistics of the Social Welfare Department, more than 370 cases of child abuse were recorded in the first quarter of this year, an increase of 35% compared to the same period last year, of which 170 cases involved bodily harm. The current situation is absolutely unacceptable. The Government must take decisive measures and we must “save the children”!
I would like to thank Mr Michael TIEN for moving today’s motion. A number of suggestions have been put forward in the original motion and the amendments respectively, including a mandatory reporting mechanism on child abuse and measures to improve the services of child welfare service organizations. Other Members have already said a lot on these suggestions and I support most of them. Due to time constraints, I will not go into details. Instead, I would like to talk about the root causes of child abuse. According to available statistics, about 60% of the abusers in reported cases were parents. In the real world, there must be more parental abuse cases than expected. Frankly speaking, child abuse cases in social welfare organizations are to a certain extent caused by negligence on the part of the management which are relatively easy to deal with. On the other hand, child abuse in families involves many ethical issues, which are more difficult to handle and warrant our extra attention.
In the real world, due to increasing pressure from work and life, it is increasingly unlikely to maintain a harmonious home and the divorce rate has been surging. Parents are often under so much pressure from various sources that they will easily vent their emotions on their children if they do not know how to cope with it. On the other hand, some studies have suggested that parents often follow the parenting methods of the previous generation when educating their children. The previous generation generally gave corporal punishment in the belief that “spare the rod and spoil the child”. As the public awareness of child protection is relatively weak in Hong Kong, many parents will continue to use corporal punishment to educate their children. Child abuse will then pass down from generation to generation, which is especially common in grass-roots families.
Some people say that one should get a license before becoming a parent. While this is just a joke, I firmly believe that parental education is necessary. In reality, many parents are only result-oriented. When they find that their children disobey them, refrain from eating, refuse to sit still or throw tantrums, they will assume that their children are mischievous and rebellious. In a fit of anger, they will administer corporal punishment on them, which will end up being habitual child abuse in the long run. However, have parents ever looked into the causes of their children’s “mischievous” behaviour in an in-depth manner? In fact, their behaviour is very complex. In particular, parents in grass-roots families may not understand that psychological and biological are probably the root causes of their children’s behaviour.
I therefore believe that the correct approach should include conscientiously teaching parents the correct family concepts and ways to understand their children’s problems, instilling in them the message of child protection, rectifying their misconception about corporal punishment, and teaching them to manage well their own emotions. Of course, the Government should provide adequate support and ancillary services, including child assessment and counselling services, to assist parents in finding appropriate solutions to the problem and taking responsibility for disciplining and educating their children.
In addition, schools and teachers should also take up more responsibility because teachers, other than parents, have the most frequent contact with children. For this reason, the Education Bureau should provide comprehensive training for teachers to enable them to identify and handle child abuse problems properly, and should encourage teachers to pay more attention to their students’ conditions so as to detect abuse cases early. In addition, I endorse the establishment of a mandatory reporting mechanism on child abuse cases. At present, schools may find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place as to whether to report an abuse case. After the mandatory reporting mechanism is put in place, schools can be rest assured that the cases will be followed up by experienced personnel. Meanwhile, the Government must provide adequate support and guidelines, including dedicated staff to handle cases in an emergency, or else the reporting mechanism will not make much of an impact.
Thank you, President.