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Opinion | How many deaths before Hong Kong reviews laws on child neglect?
- Although the city has criminal provisions dealing with child neglect, leaving a child unattended at home is not a criminal act
- With two children falling from a height in February, and the number of child neglect cases doubling in 10 years, Hong Kong must reassess its child protection laws
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At what age could a child be left alone at home or in any place? Should it be purely the decision of a parent, or should we have a legal benchmark for the society to follow?
In January 1991, four children were locked up and left alone in their home in Ho Man Tin, and then burned to death when a fire broke out. The tragedy occurred against the backdrop of Hong Kong’s economy growing rapidly in the late 1980s and early 1990s and the traditional family structure changing to nuclear families, with more women working outside the home.
The tragedy started a series of debates in the Legislative Council in the same year. The Hong Kong government promptly released a white paper on social welfare, which addressed improving child care services, and published a consultation paper on measures to prevent children from being left unattended at home.
However, our government ultimately chose to follow the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Singapore, which at the time had similar provisions to Hong Kong. This means we have criminal provisions dealing with child neglect – Section 27 of the Offences Against the Person Ordinance (Cap 212) on “ill-treatment or neglect by those in charge of child or young person” – but leaving a child unattended at home in itself is not a criminal act.
This February, there were two accidents involving young children falling from a height – one child was injured, while the other died – raising concerns about child neglect again. The Child Fatality Review Panel’s report released in 2021 revealed that there were 22 fatal child accidents between 2016 and 2018, of which six children died from falls, eight died in traffic accidents, six died of choking, and the remaining two died in drowning and hanging accidents.
Social Welfare Department records also showed the number of new neglect cases has more than doubled in 10 years, from 105 in 2011 to 275 in 2021. It is clear that the issue of child neglect has not yet been properly addressed.
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