More teenage girls joining street gangs
Social workers say girls are taking over from the boys as leaders, and some as young as six being exposed to triad culture, sex work and drugs
A growing number of girls are muscling out the boys in Hong Kong's teenage street gang culture, according to a charity that has been helping troubled youngsters for over two decades.
Social workers at Youth Outreach, who take in 200 children off the streets every night at their Sai Wan Ho drop-in centre, say that in their early teens girls are often physically stronger than boys and have a more mature personality, making them natural authority figures.
"A lot of the gang leaders are now girls and they are getting younger and more masculine," said social worker Ted Tam Chung-hoi, 33, who has worked with Youth Outreach for 10 years.
Every night, the centre's staff pick up children found out on the streets all over Hong Kong, especially in more remote districts such as Tin Shui Wai, Tuen Mun and Tseung Kwan O, and bring them back to the centre, which stays open from 9pm to 7am.
A few years ago, Tam noticed a troubling trend with kids as young as six hanging out late at night, all of them exposed to triad culture, sex work and drugs.
Rachel, 15, was one of them. At just seven years old, she started hanging out past midnight in parks in Wan Chai. Her parents were rarely home. "It was dangerous," she recalled as she sat at the drop-in centre. Her cousin, a triad member, ended up being the main adult in her life and at the age of eight she had her first taste of ketamine. Within a month, she was addicted.