The Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children’s home "Tong Le Ju" broke out in the case of child abuse, which aroused public concern. As of Wednesday (29th), 7 employees were known to be involved in the case, and as many as 19 children were abused.
Chief Executive Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and Secretary for Labour and Welfare Law Chi-kwong also expressed concern about the case. They pointed out the seriousness of the incident and will urge the Social Welfare Department to conduct an in-depth and comprehensive investigation of the incident.
At the same time, the two also stated that they must take immediate action to implement child protection measures in this year’s Policy Address, including legislation to compulsorily report child abuse cases, strengthen the training of relevant professional workers to identify child abuse, and implement the Law Reform Commission as appropriate. Recommendations put forward in the "Case Report of Causing or Allowing the Death or Serious Injury of Children or Vulnerable Adults", etc.
Current recommendations can only treat symptoms
The Director of the Bureau of Labor and Welfare, Luo Zhiguang, specifically mentioned in his blog that the SWD should review the organization’s daily service monitoring and staff supervision of any deficiencies and areas that need to be improved, and review the reports and follow-up plans submitted by the organization, and implement corresponding measures. However, reviewing and improving the service quality of institutions can only treat the symptoms.
The core of the problem should be that there are too many children who need to use residential services.
According to the SWD, in 2019-20, the number of children staying in residential child care centers under the age of three is 185, and the average number of people waiting for service per month is 39. Each child needs to be scheduled for about seven and a half months, which means Children who need to use related services have not yet been "cleared". While improving the quality of services, the bureau needs to plan to focus more on the root cause of the problem.
Relaxing adoption restrictions can help reduce children in hospital
To solve the problem from the root cause and reduce the number of children staying, the most direct and effective way is to encourage adoption by the general public.
Recalling that the number of new adoption applications processed in 2017-18 was 106 in total, it dropped sharply to 61 in 2018-19. Although the relevant number returned to an upward trend to 87 in 2019-20.
However, according to the child data of the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau, as of the end of 2020, there are still about 2,244 children under the age of 21 receiving different residential care services. In comparison, the number of adoptions is really only a fraction, so the government still needs to strengthen its efforts to promote adoption. Serve.
In addition to publicity, the bureau may also consider making appropriate amendments to the existing adoption mechanism, relaxing the regulations to attract more people to adopt, such as the requirement that adoptive couples must be married for at least three years, and relax the need to keep 12 people in Hong Kong after adoption. Can the monthly limit be relaxed, etc.
In addition, since the SWD currently only handles adoption services through the three authorized institutions of Po Leung Kuk, Mother's Choice, and Hong Kong International Social Service, it can consider expanding the number of authorized institutions to provide convenience for citizens who intend to adopt.
Tong Leju’s child abuse case shocked the Social and Social Welfare Department’s responsibility to cope with child abuse. It cannot stop with legislation promptly enacting the “crime of no protection”. Improve the details to help the public understand that a 5-year-old girl and her brother have been abused for half a year.