Letters | Hong Kong budget shows child neglect never gets old in city governance

The under-18s are neither receiving cash handouts nor being given priority in the budget. Also, priority has not been given to establishing a competent mandatory platform to represent children’s best interests

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Children play in front of decorations for Mid-Autumn Festival, at Ma On Shan in September 2018. Photo: Edmond So

Published: 7:15am, 9 Mar 2020Updated: 7:15am, 9 Mar 2020

The exclusion of children, the under-18s, from the proposed handouts of HK$10,000 is symptomatic of our government’s long neglect of children’s interests in policy formulation.

Children deserve the same, if not more, support as adults, particularly in times of hardship and social unrest. In addition, the absence of a separate section in the 2020-2021 budget devoted to the implementation of children’s rights further reflects the lack of priority accorded to Hong Kong children.

Children’s rights advocates have been consistently calling for proactive policies and significant budgetary improvements, to effectively address children’s rights violations and diligently build up a rights-respecting culture that will ensure the child’s innate rights to survival, development, protection and participation.

The existing child-protection system in Hong Kong is overloaded and seriously outdated. Too many children have encountered rights violations and suffered different forms of abuse and neglect.

New challenges arising from the mishandling of the extradition bill and the Covid-19 outbreak have exacerbated mental health conditions that were already serious, and poor relationships within the family, with the government, with the police and in the broader community, thus threatening the optimal growth and development of our young citizens.