Grenville Cross

Opinion | Hong Kong needs these laws to close child protection loopholes

Despite recent legislation on mandatory reporting of abuse, children still need stronger protection from psychological harm and sexual grooming, and stronger deterrence against neglect

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According to the Social Welfare Department’s Child Protection Registry, reported child abuse cases in Hong Kong increased from 2020 to 2023. The most common type of abuse is physical. Photo: Shutterstock

Grenville Cross

Published: 9:30am, 24 Dec 2024

Hong Kong’s passage of a law earlier this year mandating the reporting of child abuse should greatly benefit the city’s vulnerable. By discharging one of its obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the law shows Hong Kong is serious about child protection. However, there’s much more work to be done.

According to statistics from the Social Welfare Department’s Child Protection Registry, child abuse cases have increased from 940 cases in 2020 to 1,457 cases in 2023. The most prevalent type of abuse was physical (602 cases, or 41.3 per cent), followed by sexual abuse (509, or 34.9 per cent) and neglect (310 cases, or 21.3 per cent).

Among the cases of sexual abuse involving underage victims, 45 met their perpetrators online. This was a 15 per cent increase from the previous year. Most victims were between ages 12 and 16, with the youngest being only nine years old.

However, most cases never come to light. In 2021, Professor Clinton Emery, a social worker researcher at the University of Hong Kong, estimated that only 1 per cent of child maltreatment cases are reported. According to a China Daily report, “child abuse is largely a phenomenon of families at the margins of society, handicapped by poor education and low income”. Alarm bells, therefore, are ringing, and must be heard.

The Commission on Children, created in 2018 to be an engine of change and chaired by the Chief Secretary Eric Chan Kwok-ki, must show its worth by convincing the government of the need for three new child protection laws.

Children play at a playground in Mong Kok in August this year. Hong Kong needs three new child protection laws. Photo: Jelly Tse

The easiest reform is what some in the United Kingdom called the “Cinderella Law” – part of the country’s Serious Crime Act – directed at combating psychological suffering. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child requires children to be protected emotionally as well as physically, and here Hong Kong is wanting.