- Four areas score zero, including widening wealth gap and lack of independent statutory children’s rights committee, in Children’s Rights Association ratings
- Statistics from Census Department show that 222,600 children below age of 18 could be classified as living in poverty in 2023
A mother and daughter at home in Sham Shui Po. The Children’s Rights Association says concerns remain about living conditions in subdivided flats. Photo: May TseAn advocacy group in Hong Kong has given authorities a performance rating of zero for almost half of their efforts in 2023 to improve the lives of poor children, lamenting a widening wealth gap with more than 200,000 young residents remaining in poverty.
“The Hong Kong government focused on economic recovery in 2023, but has neglected policy support, legislation and services for poverty alleviation among children,” said 15-year-old Kelly Lee Wai-yi, an ambassador from the Children’s Rights Association, on Sunday.
Statistics from the Census Department show that 222,600 children below the age of 18 could be classified as living in poverty in 2023, accounting for 23.8 per cent of the total age group population.
The annual ratings exercise asked about 20 children, all members of the association’s executive committee and from underprivileged backgrounds, to discuss and rate the government’s policy performance on issues affecting them. The results were then passed on to about 5,000 fellow members, also children, for vetting.
The association is affiliated with the Society for Community Organisation.
The four out of 10 policy areas that scored zero were the deepening wealth gap, obstacles for mainland mothers to reunite with their kids in the city, the lack of anti-discrimination laws for new immigrants from across the border and the absence of an independent statutory children’s rights committee.
Authorities’ rating for narrowing the wealth gap dropped from two points in 2022 to zero in 2023, which Lee attributed to the lack of available data about the city’s poorest, referring to an earlier suspension of the Census Department’s Poverty Situation Report.
“If we don’t even have the relevant indicators for [poverty], it’s very difficult to solve the problem,” Lee said.
The report, last published in November 2021, covers the qualifying household income for the city’s poverty line, poverty among children and young people, as well as policy implications of the collated data.
Members of the organisation also criticised the government over education subsidies, which they said were insufficient and had hamstrung underprivileged children’s participation in school activities.
Advocate Bianca Zhang Bao-zhi, 16, said she could not afford to join most sports teams at her school when extracurricular activities resumed after the Covid-19 epidemic.
“For instance, besides running and some other physical activities that strengthen [your] health, you have to pay HK$2,000 [US$256] per term to join sports teams like the badminton team or the basketball team,” Zhang said.
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“But the government doesn’t have subsidies covering these, it’s very difficult for poor families to fork out a sum like this for us to join school teams.”
The Strive and Rise programme, a mentorship scheme for underprivileged students from Form One to Four helmed by No 2 official Eric Chan Kwok-ki, was also criticised for its narrow scope and limited number of beneficiaries.
“Even though the age range of participants has been expanded to Forms One to Four, senior primary students cannot benefit from the scheme,” said Jason Xue, a 13-year-old advocate. “The number of students that benefit is also limited.”
But the group praised the government’s work on housing supply, rating it the highest among their concerns with five points out of 10 for the introduction of a task force targeting subdivided flats, as outlined in the 2023 policy address, and the light public housing scheme from 2022.
But they said concerns still remained, as many young people lived in subpar conditions in subdivided flats.
For Lan Wai-ching, living in a tin-roofed flat meant unbearable summers as the typhoon seasons brought constant water leakage from a rusted ceiling.
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“This didn’t just affect my sleep, as I had to get up at midnight to clear water that had leaked into the flat, but also when I’m doing homework, mosquitoes would bite me to the point where I would be distracted,” Lan said.
Sze Lai-shan, deputy director of the Society for Community Organisation, urged the government to pay more attention to children most in need.
“We understand that the new government may need some time, but some things cannot wait, such as children’s growth and the wealth gap – these need to be addressed,” Sze said.