Improves the lives of Hong Kong’s ethnic minorities by reducing suffering and providing opportunities
Domestic Violence Team, Family and Child Welfare Branch, Social Welfare Department, Room 721, 7/F, Wu Chung House, 213 Queen’s Road East, Wan Chai, Hong Kong
7th September, 2022
The Zubin Foundation’s Response to the Proposal on the Mandatory Reporting Requirement for Suspected Child Abuse Cases
1. Introduction to The Zubin Foundation (TZF)
1.1. The Zubin Foundation (IR: 91/12344) is a registered charity committed to improving the lives of Hong Kong’s ethnic minorities by providing opportunities and reducing suffering.
1.2. We conduct outreach projects by providing training, counselling, and other well-being services to our service users, including managing the Call Mira helpline for women and girls and our scholarships programme Ethnic minority children and their parents are one of our key stakeholders, in particular, ethnic minority children in emotional distress, ethnic minority children with special educational needs and their parents, parents who lack parenting skills, parents and children who need immediate safety support, etc.
The following responses are drafted based on our experience working in the ethnic minority community.
2. Background
2.1. TZF agrees that setting legislation that mandates reporting on child abuse is necessary and important.
3. Whom to protect?
3.1. TZF supports the proposed definition of children as persons aged below 18.
4. Who are mandated to make reports?
4.1. The professions that have frequent contact with children and the profession are currently subject to some form of regulation – we understand the need of receiving appropriate training to enhance the capacity of the profession. However, if we look into children’s best interests – there are other significant individuals who are not included in the proposal. This omission of these individuals poses a significant risk to children.
4.2. TZF Recommendations to the current list
4.2.1. Religious sector – this whole sector is missing. We know there are a
Improves the lives of Hong Kong’s ethnic minorities by reducing suffering and providing opportunities
significant number of ethnic minority children who attend religious places (Mosques, Madrassas, Churches, Temples, Sikh temples, etc.) every day or at least once a week. The compulsory reporting should cover settings like this which often host a large number of children. And most importantly, any training needs to be made compulsory for teachers and religious leaders in these settings
4.2.2. Counsellors – children are not only being counselled by social workers. In our own charity, The Zubin Foundation, we hire counsellors to conduct counselling sessions with children and adults. We know there are other NGOs/schools/organisations that hire counsellors and psychologists to conduct counselling sessions. Counsellors are largely registered under The Hong Kong Professional Counselling Association (HKPCA) or Asian Professional Counselling and Psychology Association (APCPA). We recommend counsellors should be included in the mandatory reporter list.
4.2.3. Education sector
4.2.3.1. Teaching Assistants(TA) should be covered. We know there are teaching assistants often assigned to look after ethnic minority children and their families. There are local universities offering TA training which could include how to identify children at risk TZF suggests TA should be included as well.
4.2.3.2. Teachers – needs to include all registered teachers and permitted teachers, as well as teachers-to-be who are conducting their practicums.
4.2.3.3. Tutors in tutorial centres – looking at the amount of time that they spent with children, they should be included in the list.
4.3. TZF Recommendation to add a secondary list
4.3.1. Secondary list – we understand it is the first time setting up the compulsory reporting regulation, there are different views in society. Largely, different professionals welcome this idea and ultimately, we all aim at creating a child-safeguarding society in Hong Kong to protect children here. In the interim, thinking ahead to better protect children, we urge the government to set up a timetable and a secondary list – the professionals on this list are the ones who are not ready yet to be on the list of mandated reporters at the moment, however, they should be trained and prepared to be listed on the list of mandated reporters in the second revision of this regulation.
4.3.2. The professions below are recommended to be included in the secondary list:
4.3.2.1. Programme/project workers in NGOs who work on projects related to children
4.3.2.2. Staff overseeing centres (children and youth activity and music centres, tutoring centres, etc.) which work with children.
Improves the lives of Hong Kong’s ethnic minorities by reducing suffering and providing opportunities
4.3.2.3. Extra-curricular activities coaches/teachers and teaching assistances
4.3.2.4. Childcare providers, especially those hired under the “Neighbourhood Support Child Care Service” (NSCCP)
4.3.2.5. Foreign domestic helpers
4.3.2.6. Other professions who have close contact with children
4.3.3. These individuals should be encouraged to join trainings on child protection. The more they understand the concept of child protection, the larger our children got covered.
4.4. TZF Recommendation to set up a tertiary defence line against child abuse –aiming at creating a wide-covered environment for child-safeguarding
4.4.1. Ultimately we want to create a safeguarding environment for children. Neighbourhood plays an important role by being an important defence line against child abuse. If we look at the case reported on 3rd September, 2022, one potential way that could have prevented the tragedy earlier could be through the reporting of the neighbourhood. Neighbours play a strong supplement role especially under lockdown or home-schooling periods because they are the first ones to hear and see unusual actions – e.g. screaming, fighting, crying, etc.
4.4.2. Thus, we urge the government to set up this tertiary reporting level –by creating an easy-to-remember 24-hour hotline which would have social workers to take up the calls and collect information if possible. The hotline should be open for anyone to call – it could be neighbours, relatives, friends, etc.
4.4.3. We understand it takes a long time to get neighbours or the wider community onboard. At the moment, the child-safeguarding education is not sufficient in the community. Thus, we urge the government to build this third defence line against child abuse by planning an ongoing territory-wide education campaign on childsafeguarding for all.
5. What types of suspected cases to be reported?
5.1. We understand the listed types of suspected child abuse (physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect and psychological abuse) are aligned with the maltreatment procedural guide used widely. However, looking into the harmful act and the severe consequences of “forced marriage”, we urge the government to look into this issue and consider it to be covered as a separate type of abuse; or at least if put under “psychological abuse”, it needed to be mentioned properly as a sub-category to illustrate the government’s zero tolerance towards forced marriage. It is very important to send a strong message to the community.
5.2. Early child engagement before 18 should also be looked into, any children who are pressurised to leave Hong Kong to marry / get engaged to marry should be covered as a form of child abuse.
Improves the lives of Hong Kong’s ethnic minorities by reducing suffering and providing opportunities
5.3. Furthermore, absences from school are not uncommon in the ethnic minority community. Sometimes the pretence given is for a family affair (a funeral, wedding of a relative), when actually it is to force a girl to get married when abroad. This needs to be considered and understood.
5.4. The reference guidebook (para 14 of the consultation document) should include forced marriage as one of the illustrations.
6. What should be the appropriate level of penalty?
6.1. TZF supports the suggestions
7. Reporting channel
7.1. Please further explain the “reasonable timeframe”.
8. Training
8.1. E-learning platform – the e-learning platform should be open to other individuals, at least including the ones mentioned in 4.3 – the secondary list, so as to prepare a wider group of individuals to be ready for the creation of a child-safeguarding environment.
8.2. Content of Modules and trainings – the content of the current two modules are too basic. It needed to include the same special case samples for people to understand.
8.2.1. Intersectionality needs to be included in the training – a lot of the times, professionals are equipped with knowledge on what to report in general situation but not situations with complexity. Thus, the elearning platforms need to include topics such as intersectionality, which might include children with SEN, family with complexity, ethnic minorities etc.
8.2.2. Cultural issues needs to be mentioned separately with samples of cases. Usually Hong Kong professionals will wrongly allow perceived “ethnic minority culture” to override child safety. This is clearly wrong. Professionals need to be taught that child abuse is abuse, regardless of culture.
8.3. Child safeguarding needs to be a compulsory topic in the syllabus of all professionals-to-be, including health workers, social workers, teachers, etc.
9. Others
9.1. What happens to the child-
9.1.1. Although the proposal’s remit is to address the reporting of child abuse, it is imperative that the administration considers the residence of an ethnic minority child, if he or she should be taken away from his parents.
9.1.2. An ethnic minority child who enters institutionalised care would suffer potentially from social and cultural exclusion which would be detrimental psychologically in many ways.
Improves the lives of Hong Kong’s ethnic minorities by reducing suffering and providing opportunities
9.1.3. The government should consider arrangements for ethnic minority children when taken away from their families and consider for example, developing a roster of ethnic minorities who could act as foster family, for ethnic minority children.
9.2. Parental training
9.2.1. From our experience, a lot of parents we worked with always want to learn more knowledge and skills on parenting. Often corporal punishment is used because they lack other means to “teach” the child and could not manage their own anger towards the child’s naughtiness We urge the government to invest in and fund research and programmes on different research-based parentings which are developed with a lens of cultural perspective and have a specific programme supporting parents with children with special educational needs.
9.2.2. Social Welfare Department could launch the programmes working closely with the Maternal and Child Health Centres and schools (kindergarten, primary and secondary) to focus on different issues based on the developmental needs of a child.
10. Enquiries:
10.1. For further information and discussion, please contact:
Shalin Mahtani, Founder and CEO, email at mummy@zubinfoundation.org
Sandy Chan, Operations Director, email at sandy@zubinfoundation.org