Skip to content
Engagement
Stakeholder Engagement
Online Stakeholder Engagement Session on "Child Abuse"
Follow-up on Engagement Session

Follow-up on Views Gathered at the Stakeholder Engagement Session on Child Abuse

Coordination of Child-related Policies and Initiatives

  • The Government attaches great importance to the protection of children in Hong Kong.  The Commission on Children (CoC) was set up in 2018 as a high-level advisory body to monitor children-related policies and initiatives under different bureaux and departments (B/Ds).  Four working groups (WGs) are set up under CoC to examine policies and programmes related to the safeguarding of children’s well-beings and conduct stakeholder engagement sessions and report progress to the full CoC meetings on a quarterly basis.  Among them, the WG on Children Protection focuses on issues and policies related to child protection. 
  • CoC has been launching publicity programmes at different media to raise public awareness and enhance public education of child protection.  CoC will continue its efforts to strengthen its publicity on children protection and will continue to monitor and evaluate the work of relevant B/Ds in child protection.
  • Through the Funding Scheme for Children’s Well-being and Development, CoC supports non-governmental organisations (NGOs), schools and child concern groups to undertake promotional and public educational projects on children-related issues including promotion of child protection. 
  • CoC has also commenced the consultancy study for developing a central databank on children in Hong Kong to provide analysis and recommendations on the feasibility, implementation framework and other related issues.

Prevention and/or Early Identification and Intervention of Suspected Child Abuse

  • Legislation
    • The Labour and Welfare Bureau has commenced the legislative exercise on the proposal on the mandatory reporting requirement for suspected child abuse cases with the target of introducing a Bill into the Legislative Council in the first half of 2023.  The Social Welfare Department (SWD) is making preparation for practitioners in the relevant professions to be regulated in the future to receive appropriate training to enhance their capacity for early identification and handling of child abuse cases.  The Government is consulting stakeholders on the implementation details of the mandatory reporting requirement, including the professional practitioners to be mandated to report child abuse cases, the reporting threshold, reporting channels, provisions to safeguard the interests of mandated reporters, etc..  The Government will also consider how to take forward the recommendations in the Law Reform Commission’s Report relevant to “failure to protect” published in September 2021.
  • Support Services
    • The 65 Integrated Family Service Centres (IFSCs) and two Integrated Service Centres (ISCs) of SWD provide support services to vulnerable or at-risk families, including families with childcare difficulties, through counselling, therapeutic and support groups, and referring the needy families to appropriate childcare support services.
    • The Government is regularising the “Pilot Scheme on Social Work Service for Pre-primary Institutions” in 2022-23 to provide social work service for about 130 000 pre-primary children and their families in around 780 aided/subsidised pre-primary institutions.  The service aims to identify early and provide assistance to pre-primary children and their families with welfare needs.
    • The Family Health Service (FHS) of the Department of Health (DH) provides a comprehensive range of health promotion and disease prevention services for children from birth to five years through a network of Maternal and Child Health Centres (MCHCs) in Hong Kong.  Through the Integrated Child Health and Development Programme, children attend MCHC at different ages to receive immunisation, health and developmental surveillance; and parenting service is provided to parents to promote the physical, cognitive and social-emotional health of preschool children. Parents receive anticipatory guidance on parenting through various means so as to equip them with the necessary knowledge and skills to bring up healthy children through positive parenting practices. Children with health and developmental concerns are identified through surveillance and referred to appropriate specialists for further management.
    • At-risk pregnant women, children, and their families identified by MCHCs will be provided with timely health and social services under the Comprehensive Child Development Service (CCDS). Parenting capacity assessment framework for social and health sectors' frontline staff have been developed to facilitate frontline worker to assess the capacity of the families in protecting the children from risk, enhancing their developmental experiences and formulating feasible welfare plans for children upon collaboration among the concerned parties. The Government will conduct a review on CCDS with a view to enhancing inter-disciplinary communication and collaboration among Hospital Authority (HA), DH and SWD.
    • Student Health Service of DH provides annual health assessment to all primary and secondary day school students to safeguard both the physical and psychological health of students through health promotion and disease prevention services. Child Assessment Service provides multidisciplinary assessment, recommendation of rehabilitation plan and interim support for children with developmental disabilities. Suspected cases are referred to the Medical Co-ordinator on Child Abuse and pediatricians in hospitals of HA and/or reported to Family and Child Protective Services Unit (FCPSU). School social workers or social workers from SWD will also be liaised for the welfare and continuity of care for affected students.
    • In case of suspected sexual abuse, pediatricians of HA would liaise with the Police/gynecologists at HA for forensic examination as necessary and follow up.
  • Handling of Child Abuse Cases
    • The Protecting Children from Maltreatment – Procedural Guide for Multi-disciplinary Co-operation (Revised 2020), issued jointly by SWD, Education Bureau (EDB) and the Police, provides principles and guidelines for schools and organisations to formulate relevant child protection policies, measures and handling procedures for prevention of child maltreatment, with a view to protecting the safety and best interests of children and provide support to the children and their families in need.  These measures include assigning designated personnel to handle suspected child maltreatment incidents, providing staff with relevant training, and checking whether eligible applicants have any criminal conviction records against a specified list of sexual offences when making recruitment on child-related work.
    • Upon taking over a suspected child abuse case, the Police endeavors to arrange for the video recorded interview (VRI) as soon as practicable with consideration to the welfare of the children and in close liaison with SWD and the relevant parties.
    • The Correctional Services Department (CSD) adopts a zero-tolerance approach towards any form of bullying among persons in custody.  Any illegal acts will be dealt with seriously.  Sex offenders will be encouraged to participate voluntarily in the psychological treatment programmes as provided by CSD for early rehabilitation.
  • Training for Practitioners
    • SWD, EDB and Police jointly organise training programmes on a regular basis on handling suspected cases of child abuse to enhance the knowledge and skills of different professionals as well as to promote multi-disciplinary collaboration.  The Police and SWD also jointly organise Video-recorded Interview with Child and Mentally Incapacitated Witnesses Training regularly to equip police officers, social workers and clinical psychologists with professional knowledge and skills on taking VRIs.
  • Child Fatality Review Panel
    • The Child Fatality Review Panel reviews child fatal cases including tragic cases reportable to the Coroners after investigation by the law enforcement agents and/or completion of the court proceedings.  It has played the role to facilitate inter-sectoral collaboration and multi-disciplinary co-operation for preventing occurrence of avoidable child deaths, to identify good practice and lessons to learn on the service delivery process, systems and multi-disciplinary collaborative efforts through the cases reviewed, and to recommend improvements and to keep in view their implementation.

Education and Promotion of Child Protection

  • School Education
    • In 2021, EDB released The Values Education Curriculum Framework (Pilot Version) for schools to adopt a holistic approach for promoting values education (including sex education and self-protection).  EDB has been developing related learning and teaching resources (e.g. “Don’t blame the victims”, “Sexual Harassment among Peers” and “Understanding Domestic Violence”) with a view to developing the positive values and proper behaviours of children.
    • The “Kindergarten Education Curriculum Guide” (2017) has covered the knowledge, skills and values and attitudes related to sex education, such as understanding one’s own body, developing awareness of self-protection and learning how to express feelings and needs through appropriate means, in the relevant developmental objectives and learning areas.
    • To raise primary and secondary students’ awareness of self-protection against child sexual abuse, topics related to self-protection, for example, “Protecting Our Body, Including Private Parts”, “Handling Issues of Sexual Abuse”, “Factors Affecting Child Development”, “Child Abuse”, “Global Issue: Well-being of the Child” are covered in the school curriculum of Key Learning Areas and relevant subjects of primary and secondary schools.
  • Parent Education
    • DH has developed extensive positive parenting education resources (e.g. through training programmes, leaflets, videos, website) to support parents with guidance on child care, child development and positive parenting during the antenatal period and the pre-school years of their children.  For parents whose children have early behavioural problems or parents who encounter difficulties in parenting, MCHCs also organise structured group training programmes to teach positive parenting strategies. Education resources on promoting the psychological well-being of parents (e.g. relieving the stress of parenting) is also available. In 2021, a series of 6 leaflets and 3 video clips on social emotional development as well as emotion coaching for young children have been developed. These resources are available for clients attending MCHCs and uploaded to FHS website (http://s.fhs.gov.hk/ighl1 and http://s.fhs.gov.hk/jpdui) in June 2021. Child Assessment Service has launched a “Parenting Channel” on the website demonstrating various techniques and methods of positive parenting.
    • Since 2020, EDB has launched the territory-wide Positive Parent Campaign to promote parent education, and launched the “Smart Parent Net” website to enable parents’ easy access to information on supporting physical and psychological development of students.  EDB also provides resources to Parent-Teacher Associations of schools and Federations of PTAs of different districts to organise activities and parent education courses, and supports the Committee on Home-School Co-operation in organising parent activities and seminars on parenting skills, etc.
  • Public Education
    • Since 2002, SWD has launched the “Strengthening Families and Combating Violence” publicity campaign to raise the public awareness of the importance of family cohesion and prevention of child maltreatment.  SWD also promotes child protection through various means such as leaflets, videos, television and radio Announcements in the Public Interest (APIs) and animation clips.  These materials are available in SWD YouTube and/or the IFSCs of SWD and NGOs, as well as the FCPSUs of SWD. 
    • Since June 2021, DH has launched a specific page on child protection in its website (http://s.fhs.gov.hk/a7epu and http://s.fhs.gov.hk/k96me).
    • Since 2010, the Police has implemented the Police Community Liaison Assistant (PCLA) Scheme. PCLAs are ethnic minorities (EMs) employed by the Force to assist the Police Districts to enhance engagement with the EM communities on matters of mutual interest. SWD’s APIs on prevention on child maltreatment were arranged to be broadcasted in five EM languages and leaflets on child protection are printed in eight EM languages to enhance the education to EM parents on the importance of child protection.

Support to Children of High Risk Groups and Their Families

  • Mental Health Support Services
    • To support the mental health of children who have witnessed domestic violence, the Health Bureau has allocated additional provision to HA from 2021-22 to develop specialised child and adolescent psychiatric service in Hong Kong East Cluster and Kowloon Central Cluster in phases, enhance the collaboration with pediatricians, train up multi-disciplinary expertise, and expand the Student Mental Health Support Scheme to 210 schools in the 2021/22 school year.  Referral system for psychological assessment on children has been put in place by HA.  SWD provides counselling, therapeutic groups and services of clinical psychologists or psychiatrists for individuals with mental health issues including children who have witnessed domestic violence.
  • Support for Children from Drug Abusing Families
    • DH has introduced a strengthened health and developmental surveillance to identify the potential health and developmental problems of these children as early as possible for timely intervention and support.  Since October 2020, 11 Counselling Centres for Psychotropic Substance Abusers and Centre for Drug Counselling of SWD are also provided with additional resources to strengthen their capability in early identification, engagement and support for psychotropic substance abusers, including pregnant drug mothers or drug-abusing parents. In 2020-2022, the Beat Drugs Fund has subsidised 16 NGO projects to support pregnant drug mothers and drug-abusing parents.
  • Child Care Services
    • SWD has been increasing the provision of child care centre (CCC) places.  In March 2021, an aided standalone CCC in Sha Tin providing 105 aided child care places has commenced service and more aided standalone CCCs will also be set up in the coming years.  Besides, SWD is purchasing suitable premises from the market for setting up more CCCs.  The Government will also review the Neighbourhood Support Child Care Project and has started to re-engineer in phases 19 Mutual Help Child Care Centres across the territory from 2021-22 onwards.
  • Support Service to Separated Families
    • The Government has increased resources in 2018/2019 to support divorcing/divorced/separated families, including promoting the concept of continuing parental responsibility, strengthening co-parenting counselling and parenting coordination service, as well as incorporating the Children Contact Service in October 2019 as one of the main support services offered by five specialised co-parenting support centres.
  • Temporary Shelter Services
    • The Family Crisis Support Centre offers services to support parent(s) and their children in crisis.  Since January 2017, SWD has provided additional manpower resources to the Refuge Centres for Women and the Multi-purpose Crisis Intervention and Support Centre to enhance the child care support services for the residents.  The NGO operators have enlisted funding such as Lotteries Fund to improve the centres’ environment and facilities.

Intervention and Follow-up of Welfare Plans for Victims of Child Abuse

  • Family and Child Protective Services
    • The 11 FCPSUs across the territory handle child abuse cases and provide one-stop service for victims of child abuse (including initial assessments and, if needed, statutory protection and social investigation as reported/requested by schools or NGOs).  From April 2019, FCPSUs have enhanced the support for frontline social workers of NGOs, among others, on early identification of suspected child abuse cases, chairing of Multi-disciplinary Case Conference on Protection of Child with Suspected Abuse and support for victims and families.  The Clinical Psychology Units of SWD provide individual, couple, or family therapy to meet the specific needs of adult survivors of child sexual abuse.
  • Multi-disciplinary Case Conference on Protection of Child with Suspected Abuse (MDCC)
    • MDCC is convened for the professionals concerned (e.g. medical staff, clinical psychologists, teachers, school social workers and the Police, etc.) to share their professional knowledge, information and concerns with the focus on protecting the safety and best interests of the child.  To facilitate higher level of participation of family members and to mobilise the family resources, parents of the child concerned would be engaged in assessing the risk of further abuse and formulating safety and follow-up plans.
  • Foster Care Services
    • SWD has made strenuous efforts in recruiting foster families for providing foster care to children in need.  Since 2020, SWD has started recruiting foster families to provide short-term and relief services to address foster parents’ need for a break when rendering long-term foster care services.  Foster parents are provided with further support and training on handling foster children and youth with special needs from clinical psychologists under the Agency-based Enhancement of Clinical Psychological Support Services for Children Under Foster Care which has been implemented since October 2020.
  • Residential Child Care Services (RCCS)
    • SWD has increased the number of residential child care places and implemented various enhancement measures to improve the living environment, strengthen the RCCS manpower and professional support in recent years.  On-site rehabilitation services are provided to children with special needs using RCCS under the on-site pre-school rehabilitation services.  
    • In April 2022, the Government has set up the Committee on Review of Residential Child Care and Related Services to conduct a comprehensive review on residential child care services and monitoring of related services as well as propose enhancement measures.  The first phase of the review on residential child care centre and residential special child care centre services was completed in August 2022 and the second phase of the review will cover other types of RCCS and is targeted for completion in March 2023.
    • Emergency RCCS are provided to children whose parents are unable to take care of them due to emergency or in crisis situations.  SWD has closely monitored and reviewed the service demand and would increase its supply through flexible deployment of available resources.

Legal Aspects on Child Protection

  • Various legislative provisions and measures are in place to ensure that children are protected from abuse.
  • The Protection of Children and Juveniles Ordinance (Cap. 213) and Adoption Ordinance (Cap. 290) governs the application of a care or protection order and adoption of children, for the purpose of protecting the children under abuse and achieving a timely formulation of permanency plan for them. The Labour and Welfare Bureau has commenced the legislative exercise on the proposal on the mandatory reporting requirement for suspected child abuse cases with the target of introducing a Bill into the Legislative Council in the first half of 2023.
  • The Offences Against the Persons Ordinance (Cap. 212) provides that ill-treatment or neglect by those in charge of children is an offence. The Government recognises that children should grow up in a safe environment. Any policy or legislation proposal would need to be carefully considered, with a view to striking a balance between various factors, including privacy, options, responsibilities and rights of individuals, public interest, social values and whether legislation and the penalties are effective means to solve the problem and achieve the desired effect, etc. Whether to prohibit corporal punishment by law is a complex issue and it is imperative to conduct thorough and extensive discussion as well as fostering a broad consensus in the community before implementation.
  • The Government has expanded the scope of the Sexual Conviction Record Check (SCRC) Scheme and has introduced various enhancement measures since its implementation in 2011. Further expansion to the scope of SCRC Scheme will be formulated taking into account the needs to protect children and facilitate rehabilitation.