Stakeholders' Views Gathered at the Stakeholder Engagement Session on Child Abuse

On Child Protection Policy

The Government should formulate a comprehensive child protection policy, as well as developing a central databank on children to facilitate policy formulation, service planning, resources allocation and results monitoring. Publicity and public education should be enhanced to build consensus on child protection.
Child-related organisations should formulate their internal child protection policy, mechanism and procedures for handling child abuse cases.

On Mechanism for Prevention and/or Early Identification and Intervention of Child Abuse

A mandatory reporting mechanism should be introduced for child abuse cases under which the reporting obligation should initially cover professionals with frequent contact with children.
The Child Fatality Review Panel should provide response to tragic cases and formulate strategies to prevent avoidable child deaths in a timely manner. The Review Panel should be given statutory power to investigate child death cases and cover also cases of serious injuries of children.
The Government should pay special attention to potential child abuse and neglect cases, e.g. children aged below 12 in the same household of family with acute domestic violence incident reported, parents placing their children in Hong Kong under the care of other adults.
The Government should strengthen the promotion of child protection through diversified means such as including the subject of child protection in school curriculum, strengthen the publicity in social media and optimal places to engage new parents and ethnic minority communities.
To enhance early identification and intervention of child abuse cases in schools, the Government should regularise the Pilot Scheme on Social Work Services for Pre-primary Institutions. More training and support as well as clinical psychology service should be provided to teachers and school social workers for handling complicated cases and follow up on victims/witnesses of domestic violence.
The Hospital Authority should review the current practice on making psychological assessment on children who have witnessed domestic violence incidents.
The Government should prevent child abuse by staff and older children in institutions under the management of the Correctional Services Department.

On Mechanism for Prevention and/or Early Identification and Intervention of Child Sexual Abuse

The Government should reinforce sex education in schools, extend sex education to pre-school children and their parents, provide funding, training and manpower support to improve the teaching quality of sex education and strengthen teachers' ability to identify, intervene and handle sexual abuse cases.
The Government should raise public awareness of sexual abuse and its impact on child's physical and psychological development, and promote the concept of bystander intervention targeting at adolescents in primary and secondary schools.
The Hospital Authority should streamline the liaison with forensic examination or gynecological examination to ensure the provision of timely examination and prophylactic medical treatment of sexually transmitted diseases for child sexual abuse victims. The Police should expedite video recording interviews to avoid contamination of evidence to be reported.
Sex offenders should be subject to mandatory treatment and rehabilitation.

On Multi-Disciplinary Communication and Collaboration in Child Protection

Professionals of different disciplines involved in child welfare should conduct regular reviews on their own code of practice and develop a child protection charter.
The Government should establish a specialised team with investigation power and relevant expertise for handling child abuse cases currently handled by frontline social workers of non-governmental organisations.

On Early Intervention and Support for High-Risk Children Groups

Early involvement of paediatricians, clinical/educational psychologists and psychiatrists should be arranged in child abuse cases involving children with special educational needs or mental health problems. The Government should also attach importance to the psychological impacts on children who have witnessed domestic violence and formulate strategies to shorten treatment waiting time.
The Government should study the degree of harm suffered by children from drug-abusing families and formulate corresponding measures, especially for early identification and timely provision of support during antenatal and postnatal periods.
The Government should strengthen and promote child care services, and provide more resources to install child-centred equipment in temporary shelters for use by needy families.

On Welfare Plans for Care and Development Support of Child Abuse Victims

The Government should include in the meetings of the Multi-disciplinary Case Conference on Protection of Child with Suspected Abuse an agenda item on the need for review meetings to ensure that such a decision is made by the multi-disciplinary professionals involved after careful consideration from different angles, and ensure that officers of Family and Child Protective Services Units of the Social Welfare Department in different districts would adopt consistent practice.
The Government should review residential services regularly to address the problem of resources mismatch; allocate adequate multi-disciplinary professional resources to residential service units to cater for the diversified needs of children with special needs; and provide on-site pre-school rehabilitation services in residential care homes and additional resources for home-based training.
The Government should provide more emergency placement for children whose parents are unable to take care of them due to emergency situation.
The placement history of children should be provided to children homes to facilitate formulation of follow-up plans.
The Government should provide support to children receiving service at residential care centres in different psychological stages and develop a long-term welfare plan for them. Parents should be involved in formulating the welfare plan of children.
The Government should encourage more families to join the foster service and provide more incentives and support to foster families.
The Government should devise specific training programmes on possible post-assault traumatic issues and appropriate manners for handling child sexual abuse cases for related personnel.
The Government should further develop and improve the post-crisis long-term support services to adult victims of child sexual abuse.

On Legal Aspects on Child Protection

The Government should formulate the legislative timetable and devise transitional measures before enactment of any amendment legislation to step up protection of children from high risk families.
Intermittent appearance of parents will affect the application of care or protection order and adoption. The Government should include more conditions in the care or protection order to ensure the cooperation of parents.
A parental responsibility model should be introduced into Hong Kong's family laws to safeguard the interests of children of divorced families.
Corporal punishment should be completely banned. The Government should enhance the knowledge and skills of parents and carers on disciplining their children in a positive way.
The Government should consider how to handle child sexual abuse cases that took place outside Hong Kong.
The scope of the Sexual Conviction Record Check should cover both existing staff and new recruits.
Consideration may be given to exclude from sex offences records convictions for consensual sexual activity committed at 16 years of age or below.