Last month, the "Tong Le Ju", a child care center under the Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children, was revealed to be involved in child abuse incidents by employees. So far, at least 18 people have been arrested for related crimes, and at least 33 children were victims. The incident has aroused widespread concern.
According to the Director of Social Welfare Leung Chung-tai earlier, Tong Leju needs to submit an investigation report to the Social Welfare Department by tomorrow (January 25).
It is understood that the relevant investigation report will be handed over to the Executive Committee of the Society for the Protection of Children today (24th), and if approved, it will be announced as soon as Tuesday (25th).
Di Zhiyuan, a member of the Legislative Council in the social welfare sector, said that the scale of the child abuse incident was quite large, and it was suspected of negligence in supervision at the organizational level.
▼Children Protection Association "Tongleju" staff involved in child abuse scandal▼
18 SWD staff have been arrested so far
The SWD stated earlier that it has taken a series of actions since the incident, including sending an interprofessional team consisting of more than 20 clinical psychologists, nurses, social workers, etc. to the center to investigate and inspect the operation of the center on the 27th of last month; The agency also took further action last week, sending a special team to the center involved.
The Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children established an independent review committee at the beginning of this month. Chairman Huang Jiachun said that the first-phase review report on the Tongleju incident will be submitted by the end of this month.
According to the SWD, agencies have until the 25th of this month to submit their reports.
The police are currently continuing to investigate the child abuse case at Tongleju, and until Friday (21st), two more female staff members of the nursing home were arrested for allegedly abusing or neglecting children or young people in their care. The number of staff arrested in the case has now increased to 18 people, involving children increased to 33 people, all sent to hospital for examination.
Di Zhiyuan told the reporter of "Hong Kong 01" that he has not received any information about the contents of the report, but believes that the child abuse incident has had a wide-ranging impact, "This is not as simple as supervising individual employees, it is a matter of the whole organization, and it is an organizational level. I wouldn’t be surprised if some management left for accountability because of this, it would be quite reasonable.”
MPs urge public report to invite the Director-General to explain
Tang Jiabiao, the only nominee of the Legislative Council's Welfare Services Committee and the Federation of Trade Unions, said that although the review report must be submitted to the SWD on or before the 25th, neither the SWD nor the Society for the Protection of Children has clearly stated whether the report will be made. Open to the Legislative Council.
He pointed out that colleagues in the Legislative Council are very concerned about this matter and have suggested that the committee hold a special meeting in a short period of time and formally invite the Director-General to come to the Legislative Council to explain the painting in person.
He also pointed out that the Director-General has an inescapable responsibility for this incident, "You have the resources, you are entrusted with protecting children, how would you tolerate this happening, and you don't pay attention to it? (The content of the report) must be made clear to the Legislative Council. Disclosure.” He also stated that no work environment factor should be used as an excuse for poor treatment of children.
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Ge Peifan calls for a long-term review of the punishment system
Ge Peifan, a member of the Legislative Council of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, said that if employees are involved in illegal acts at the individual level, the law will of course sanction those involved, or the government may consider "stinging cards" on relevant persons, but since these NGOs are not part of the government, " I won’t let you hear what the Legislative Council has to say.” At present, all the Legislative Council can do is to require the government to publicly report the content, and to further target the underlying institutional governance issues, the lack of deterrent force against child abuse crimes by the existing legislation, Penalties for child care institutions, etc.
Recently, the SWD has dispatched a special team to monitor the Tongle Residence, which has become the only solution in the short term.
Ge Peifan added that according to the law, the government has the ability to revoke the license of a social welfare organization at any time, but in reality there are currently only two organizations that provide residential nursery care services, namely Tong Leju and Po Leung Kuk Babies. group, if the "capital punishment" is used, in reality, there will be no institutions to place those children.
She believes that the current punishment system for social welfare institutions is not complete, and it is necessary to consider introducing systems such as the point deduction system in the future. In the long run, more service providers will also need to be introduced.
Child Abuse Case of Tongleju | Advocating the Industry to Promote the Policy of Protecting Children Child Abuse at Tongleju: One Step Before Legislation The department will send a special team to be stationed on a daily basis without ruling out further regulatory actions