Hong Kong passes bill to make reporting suspected child abuse mandatory for those in certain professions
Hong Kong Free Press
Hong Kong’s legislature has approved a bill requiring teachers, social workers, doctors and other specified professionals to report suspected serious child abuse cases. Those who fail to comply could face up to three months in prison and a fine of HK$50,000.
The Mandatory Reporting of Child Abuse Bill was passed on Thursday with most legislators supporting the law that aimed to introduce a mechanism for early and effective detection and intervention of child abuse cases.
Under the new law, a list of 25 specified professionals must make a report if they suspect a child has been suffering serious harm, or is at real risk of suffering serious harm during the course of their work. The government estimated that more than 100,000 professionals would be regulated by the legislation.
25 categories of specified professionals
Social workers
Child care workers/ child care supervisors
Superintendents of residential child care service units
Teachers
Wardens of boarding schools
Nurses
Doctors
Dentists
Dental hygienists
Chinese medicine practitioners
Physiotherapists
Occupational therapists
Medical laboratory technologists
Optometrists
Radiographers
Pharmacists
Midwives
Chiropractors
Speech therapists
Dietitians
Audiologists
Clinical psychologists
Educational psychologists
According to the bill, acts that may constitute as serious harm to a child included inflicting physical injury, forcing or enticing a child to take part in a sexual act, and intimidating, terrifying or denigrating the child in a severe or repeated way that their psychological health was impaired. Neglecting a child’s basic needs repeatedly such that their health or development is endangered was also considered as causing serious harm to a child.
The law offered protection to the professionals by criminalising the inhibition or obstruction on making a report. It is also illegal for anyone to disclose the identity of someone making a report.
The three-month sentence and HK$50,000 fine will be applicable to anyone who violates the rules.
The city’s opposition-free legislature saw a rare intense debate when the bill was reviewed by lawmakers. Roundtable’s Michael Tien criticised the penalty as being too lenient and said it would not carry a deterrent effect. The appropriate jail term should be raised from three months to one year, he said.
But Tien’s peers did not back his proposal, saying jailing any professional for three months for non-compliance was already a severe penalty.
Tien eventually cast a vote of abstention, while 79 legislators voted for the bill.
In persuading lawmakers to support the government’s bill, Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun said the debate had lasted for more than six hours and defended the proposal as “the best” solution after the government had listened to opinions in society.
“We have discussed for a long time today. The length of the jail sentence is not the main point. The main point is they have to be jailed. To us, there is no absolute when it comes to what is the appropriate length of sentence,” the minister said in Cantonese.
NGO RainLily said on Thursday that many of the specified professionals who were mandated to report severe cases of child abuse did not specialise in supporting victims or survivors of sexual violence. It urged the authorities to include voices of childhood sexual abuse victims in a guide to help the professionals identify the cases which required reporting.
“This will ensure that the entire reporting and handling process adheres to trauma-informed principles, avoiding secondary trauma to the victim-survivors due to false or wrongful reports,” an English statement from RainLily read.
Calls for the legislation were renewed in recent years after Hong Kong saw a number of scandals at child care centres and schools across the city. At the end of 2021, more than 30 staff at the Children’s Residential Home were arrested over mistreatment of young children. The alleged abuse included head-hitting, hair-pulling, slapping, and tossing the children onto the ground and towards the wall.
Last June, a 56-year-old former Children’s Residential Home worker was sentenced to 27 months in prison for abuse, marking the heaviest sentence so far.
In March, local media reported that Hong Kong had recorded 1,349 child abuse cases last year, a 12.3 per cent rise compared to the figure in 2022. Around half of the cases involved sexual abuse, while the other half involved physical abuse, police said in a small-circle media interview. HKFP was not invited to attend.
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