Throwing young children on soft cushions, pulling their ears, slapping... All kinds of heinous acts of child abuse were frequently performed in this children's dormitory-Tongleju until the middle of December last year, until the passing Citizens stopped after hearing the screams of children and media reports.
Since the incident, the police have arrested 24 staff members of the home and found that as many as 39 young children were abused, and the youngest among them was Ming Zai (pseudonym), who was only 1 year and 10 months old.
"There are so many CCTVs installed. If you have checked it a little, this kind of thing will not happen." Mingzai's aunt Liu Tai said angrily, and angrily pointed out that Tong Leju apologized more than 10 days after the incident, but still did not explain Reasons for child abuse incidents.
Although the director general of the Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children Cai Su Shuxian and the director of Tong Leju Cui Huiying resigned, the Society for the Protection of Children also established an independent review committee to investigate, but it was still difficult to quell public anger.
When protecting children will not protect children, who should pay for it?
A photo series revisiting the exposure of the Tongleju child abuse case and related photos (click to enlarge) ▼▼▼
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As his mother's physical condition was not suitable for taking care of children, the court granted the guardianship of Ming Zai to the Director of Social Welfare since he was three months old.
My aunt is Mingzai's emergency contact person. She visits Mingzai once or twice every fortnight, and takes Mingzai out once a month.
She said that the staff of Tong Le Ju seldom took the initiative to inform her about Ming Tsai.
According to Tong Leju's regulations, aunt can only check whether Mingzai has any signs of injury before taking Mingzai out.
On December 15, my aunt was going to take Ming Zai out. During the inspection, she found that he had a bruise of about five yuan on the keel of his tail. Tong Le Ju staff explained that it was just a "naughty child". She didn't care too much until Ming Zai was arrested. Include abuse cases.
Family questioned the reason for the abuse, the hospital has no explanation
On December 24, the day the child abuse incident at Tongleju was exposed by the media, my aunt just made an appointment to take Mingzai out. She was going to see the news on the way to pick up Mingzai, but she didn't receive the notice at that time, so she thought, "It shouldn't be. Let him." After arriving at Tong Le Ju, the aunt routinely checked Ming Zai's body and found that he had several claw marks and bruises on his back.
The social worker of Tong Le Ju, who was assisting the inspection at the time, explained to her that it was "a child was hit by a toy", and claimed that Ming Zai was not one of the six children mentioned in the report, and told her to rest assured.
But my aunt felt that the situation was serious and felt uneasy. After taking Ming Zai back to her home, she checked Ming Zai's body again, only to find that Ming Zai also had nail marks on his buttocks. His hands are so short, he would not scratch those places normally, and it is even less likely that he would scratch with his bare hands when he is wearing clothes and diapers." At about 5 o'clock in the afternoon, after my aunt brought Mingzai back to Tongleju, the then dean Cui Huiying and the social work director Miss Chen Together with Miss Lin, they took their aunt to a room alone, and informed her that Ming Zai suspected of being abused. After dinner, they would arrange Ming Zai to go to Caritas Hospital for an injury examination and observation and treatment, but her aunt could not go with her.
The next day, when his aunt went to the hospital to visit Mingzai, he didn't respond much. Even if he was unsteady and hit the iron pillar of the hospital bed, he didn't cry. He got up as if nothing had happened, and he couldn't speak or express his pain.
On January 6, my aunt finally met Cui Huiying, the then director of Tong Leju, and Mak Jingying, the service director of the Society for the Protection of Children, "Since the incident on the 24th, I have not seen any staff of the Society for the Protection of Children, and I cherish it very much. The only chance." When the aunt asked the two management staff why the incident happened during the meeting, their expressions were stunned, and they were completely unprepared to explain and respond. She expressed her disappointment, and her anger had not subsided.
On the same day, Ming Tsai was assigned to another new residential center.
Although the new dormitory center that we moved to is older, during the visit, my aunt noticed that Ming Zai was much happier after being transferred to another hospital, and his smile became more and more. When talking with him, he would wave, blow kisses, and even smile until he was transferred. Eye.
She also felt that Ming Zai had a sense of security in the new residential center: "He would push a toy car (in the center) to walk around, no longer sticking to my feet and wanting to hug."
She went on to point out that when Ming Zai was still in Tong Le Ju, he rarely reacted to making him laugh; he would also throw or push toys away from him.
My aunt also appreciates the fact that the residential center has a tape. Once Ming Zai was injured, the staff would immediately open a WhatsApp video to let her know the actual situation, which made her feel more at ease.
At this moment, although Aunt Mingzai is deeply angry and eager to get a reasonable explanation as soon as possible, what she worries most is that Mingzai's physical and mental development will be affected after being abused.
Therefore, she hopes that Child Protection will explain the follow-up measures as soon as possible, such as arranging long-term counseling for abused children: "They (the Child Protection Association) receive 88 million yuan a year from the SWD, and they have the responsibility to explain the follow-up arrangements to the public, because they use Work with public money."
A child abuse scandal broke out at the "Tongleju", a subsidiary of the Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children, which aroused widespread concern.
(Photo by O Jiale)
The supervision system inside and outside the kindergarten is ineffective
The interim report of the investigation published by the Society for the Protection of Children and the Independent Review Committee (hereinafter referred to as the "Committee") on January 26 pointed out that the director of child care work at Tong Le Ju is responsible for overseeing the daily work of child care workers. Early childhood workers treated children rudely, but they did not realise the seriousness of the problem and did not intervene, resulting in staff continuing to deal with children inappropriately.
The interim report also mentioned that a child care worker revealed in the survey that when a director enters a certain location for inspection, colleagues will remind each other and help each other hide it, which also contributes to the culture of rude behavior in Tong Leju.
Not only is Tongleju's top-level supervision ineffective, but its affiliated agency, the Children's Protection Association, has also failed to supervise.
Cai Su Shuxian, the now resigned director-general of the Society for the Protection of Children, once admitted to the committee that she seldom visited Tong Le Ju, and she would give advance notice before visiting, that is, no surprise inspection would be conducted, and she had never read the CCTV footage in the hospital. , all internal oversight is useless.
As a public-funded institution, the SWD has the responsibility to supervise the operation of Tong Le Ju, that is, to carry out external supervision, but it has never revealed any problems.
Di Zhiyuan, a current member of the Legislative Council in the social welfare sector, denounced the SWD's inspections only once every two to three years, and the monitoring is extremely insufficient.
He pointed out that every time SWD goes there, it monitors some administrative matters, such as whether the manpower ratio meets the standard, financial management status, etc., "the process is the main thing", and child abuse is not immediately detected.
He believes that it is not enough for the SWD to only send administrative staff to monitor. During inspections, a psychologist should be arranged to have direct contact with the children to infer whether the children are emotionally different.
Zhang Chaoxiong, a former member of the Legislative Council in the social welfare sector, believes that the SWD is responsible for the child abuse scandal at Tongleju.
Children living in Tongleju are infants and young children aged 0 to 3, including abandoned babies, orphans, referred by the court, or from families with problems.
Zhang Chaoxiong said with emotion: "Children in Tongleju, their birth background is no longer ideal, and if they are abused or treated roughly in an unfamiliar place, it is hard to imagine the harm caused to them." Zhang Chaoxiong pointed out that the Director of Social Welfare as the guardian of the children , after they are admitted to residential care homes, the department has the responsibility to follow up on their development.
The SWD is also the only external organization authorized to enter the children's residential care home for monitoring. Therefore, he suggested that an independent visiting team should be set up to visit Tongleju once a quarter and report the situation to the SWD, so as to play a third-party monitoring role.
Zhang Chaoxiong said that this kind of supervision is not to "catch people and make mistakes", but to hope that everyone can work together to improve the service quality of nursery homes. It is believed that under the supervision of the independent visiting team, the operators of Tongleju will "wake up their spirits" ".
Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children Tong Le Ju.
(The club Facebook)
Voluntary reporting mechanism fails to report child abuse
Children were silently abused in the hospital, and none of the adults around them came forward to report.
The interim report of the investigation pointed out that the management and staff of Tongleju turned a blind eye to child abuse and shielded each other. Zhang Chaoxiong estimated that the staff would take into account the reputation of the organization, and if they reported it, it would become "catch their own people", so they hesitated and the incident was not reported for a long time. .
Lei Zhang Shenjia, former director-general of the Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse, also suggested that victims' families and related professionals (such as doctors, teachers and social workers) can report abusers through a voluntary notification mechanism, but unfortunately this is not mandatory.
She urged the government to implement the "mandatory notification" mechanism for child abuse cases as soon as possible. Relevant professionals should report to the government if they suspect that children have been abused.
She said angrily: "(The abuse of child care workers) is extremely inhumane. You won't kick an animal when you see it on the street, let alone a person?"
Chen Jikang, an associate professor at the Department of Social Work of the Chinese University of China, analyzed that the abusive staff at Tongleju may not know that their behavior is abuse, and colleagues who know it will not report it because they are not sure whether it is child abuse.
According to the SWD guidelines, child abuse is defined as the act or omission of a person aged 18 or below that endangers or impairs the physical and mental development of a child.
Chen Ji-kang lamented that Hong Kong's current definition of child abuse is too general, which will create a gray area, causing all units to miss an important opportunity to prevent abuse from happening, and child abuse is tolerated, which eventually leads to child abuse at Tongleju.
Residential staff lack professional training, causing child abuse tragedy
To become a child care worker at Tongleju, you must first complete a training course approved by the Director of Social Welfare, including teaching methods, child psychology and related laws, etc., in order to meet the requirements of the Society for the Protection of Children.
Di Zhiyuan bluntly stated that although the current training courses for child care workers cover a sufficient range, the content is relatively simple.
He suggested making the certification of early childhood workers a degree rather than a certificate program, and encouraged early childhood workers to continue their education, such as 10 to 20 hours of training within two years of employment, so that the way of caring for children can keep pace with the times.
Lei Zhang Shenjia also criticized that it is not enough for workers to only receive training courses, because the hospital lacks guidelines: "(Tong Le Ju) did not give clear guidelines to child care workers, so they can only do their own way. Children are good, they can do whatever they like, and there are no consequences anyway.” This led to the perpetrators “getting more and more aggressive”, leading to large-scale child abuse incidents.
She emphasized that the quality of child care workers is very important, and suggested that child care homes such as Tongleju provide induction training to teach staff the skills of communicating with children, and to formulate care guidelines to clearly inform staff what the bottom line for punishing children is and prohibit them from using Corporal punishment, but also to specify the consequences of violations.
There is no specific law to prevent child abuse Di Zhiyuan: If there is no legislation, who will protect children?
The 24 Tong Leju staff members who have been arrested are all charged with the crime of "abuse of children or young persons under their care" under Article 27 of the "Offences against the Person Ordinance". There is no protection crime", hoping to regulate child abuse bystanders in the original law, and if bystanders fail to take reasonable steps to prevent or stop the abuse, they will also be held criminally responsible.
He believes that the establishment of the "unprotected crime" will raise the vigilance of the entire organization.
The government has stated in the 2021 Policy Address that it will push forward the legislative work of the "mandatory reporting" mechanism for child abuse cases, with the goal of introducing a bill to the Legislative Council in the first half of next year (2023).
In addition, the government is also considering how to implement the "crime without protection".
Tongleju Child Abuse Case｜Police detained 6 female staff, a total of 32 people involved in the case, the mother Internet celebrity was accused of child abuse by her husband to feed cold medicine to the film, serial mad beat Zhongchu buried hot melt glue Tongleju child abuse case｜ Another female staff member was accused of arranging 10,000 yuan for bail. The Taiwan mother was suspected of abusing her two-year-old daughter to death. The case of Tong Leju who was wanted for leaving the country and was arrested for being infected with the epidemic｜Chou Shunyi, a senior administrative officer of the Baoer Association Committee, was appointed as the senior deputy director general to promote reform [Meatball Domestic Violence Case] The mother said that it was not the first time for child abuse. Slow iron rod violence
[This article was reprinted with permission from University Line, an internship publication of the School of Journalism and Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Original text: Who is responsible for the loopholes in the Tongleju child abuse case?
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