|
Lack of childcare caused many tragedies in Hong Kong recent years. Some people urged the government to legislate or amend the existing law to make it clear-cut that parents who leave their children alone at home would be charged or penalized.
 “The law is too ambiguous which makes execution difficult,” said Mrs Priscilla Lui, Director of Against Child Abuse, a non-government organization aiming at promoting a caring and non-violent environment for the growth and development of children.
She believes that the existing law could not provide enough protection to children.
According to Section 27 of Chapter 217 of the Hong Kong Ordinance, people aged 16 or more who have the custody, charge or care of any child or young person under that age and willfully neglect, abandon or expose such child or young person is considered to be violating the Offence Against the Personal Ordinance and shall be guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to imprisonment for a maximum of 10 years.
Although the law can help penalize those who leave their children unattended at home, the wordings used in the ordinance are too vague, which makes execution difficult.
For example, people may say that they are not “willfully” leaving their children alone at home but are just “unaware of the danger and serious consequences of leaving their children unattended”.
Mrs Lui suggested that the government should make some amendments to the current law in order to make it clearer, or simply propose a new law.
However, Dr Shirley Hung Suet-lin, Assistant professor of Department of Social Work of Hong Kong Baptist University, holds a different view.
“Though legislation can educate parents and prevent them from leaving their children unattended at home, families with low incomes may not be able to afford the costs after legalization of not allowing leaving children alone at home,” said Dr Hung.
Dr Hung was a social worker for more than 16 years. She came across many cases that the parents from low-income families had to leave their children at home as they had to work for long hours. The pressure of making a living forced them to pay less attention to their children.
According to Dr Hung, making a living is always prior to anything else for those families. She thought that the resources and support given to these families from the government could be more.
“It is important to strike for a balance between showing understanding and punishing the low-income families,” said Dr Hung.
Miss Elaine Li, Senior Information Officer of Social Welfare Department, also agreed that further legislation were not necessary but more efforts would be needed in promoting mutual help and stepping up public education to prevent children form being left unattended.
A research done by the Against Child Abuse showed that of the 823 telephone calls it received in the year 2007, 61 was related to leaving children unattended at home and lack of child care, which has risen a quarter when compared to 2006.
Estimates of the Commissioner for Census and Statistics showed that, on 549,700 households with children under aged 13, 42,000 households had one or more occasions left their children unattended at home for two hours or more during the past seven days before enumeration.
Ms Chau, mother of four children, had the experience of leaving her children alone at home when they were small.
“I left them home because I had to take one of the children home after school,” said Ms Chau.
“I just went out for a very short period of time. The children watched television when I was not at home.
”Many parents like Ms Chau overlooked the impacts of leaving children alone at home. Beside deaths and physical injuries, children left unattended at home may suffer from psychological impacts like emotional problems.“
In some serious cases, children may lose their senses of security and trust in their parents,” said Dr Hung.Some local child care centres provide after-school services and cliché to parents.
However, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, Secretary for Labour and Welfare Bureau, said in a Legislative Council meeting 2006-07, the overall utilization rate of child care centres subvented by the Social Welfare Department and Education Department was only 60 to 90 per cent on average.
Dr Hung said that the open hours of the centres, quota, charge and location would affect whether parents would take their children there.
“The government can provide an all-rounded child care services, improve the current child care system, offer jobs like nursemaids to the jobless women and reduce charges of the child care centres,” said Dr Hung.
Mr Cheung also mentioned in a Legislative Council meeting that the Bureau would promote neighbourhood mutual help child care services and provide financial incentives to child care centres.
There are also subsidizes forfoster homes to provide non-residential day care service since October 2007.
According to Miss Li, in 2008-09, the department will introduce flexible child care service at neighbourhood level for children aged under six and whose parents are unable to render adequate care due to long working hours, or having emergency needs.
The Department will also launch a new radio and television publicity on prevention of leaving children unattended.
Edited by KARENA YEUNG WUN-WAH
 |
Show/Hide comments
Show/Hide comment form
