Why impoverished young Hongkongers are deprived of more than food
Experts argue they risk falling further behind in their personal development as they lack engagement with peers and extracurricular activities
Li Ching-wan caught a rat with his bare hands. The 12-year-old was sleeping when he felt something sitting on his forehead. He tried to knock it off but ended up grabbing the furry creature by its body.
“I hurled it away and it landed on the face of my grandmother, who was sleeping next to me,” Li said, “The rat was probably sleeping on my forehead.”
Living in a dilapidated and poorly ventilated subdivided flat in Cheung Sha Wan, Li and his 9-year-old stepbrother are two of the 235,100 local children who live below the poverty line.
The flat, measuring about 200 square feet, has been plagued by rat troubles for years. Rat faeces is visible in almost everycorner, and in the flat’s only bedroom, Li lives with four other family members on two bunk beds. A yellow liquid drips from the room’s water-damaged ceiling night after night.
According to the Hong Kong Poverty Situation Report released in October, the city’s child poverty rate last year stood at 23.2 per cent – almost 10 percentage points higher than the figure for those aged between 18 and 64 in the city. In addition, the Social Welfare Department reported there were currently 73,204 students on the city’s Comprehensive Social Security Assistance scheme, better known as CSSA.
These staggering figures, experts say, reveal insufficient support for children in low-income households in areas such as nutrition and education. They claim the government is negligent in these areas and thus undermining its own poverty relief efforts.
