Star founds charity to fight child sex abuse

Growing reports of child sex abuse have spurred award-winning actress Josephine Siao Fong-fong to start a charity dedicated to helping victims and their families.

'Child sexual abuse is an increasing problem but no one wants to touch it because it is such a taboo subject,' Siao said.

'There are a lot of charities in Hong Kong helping the poor, the elderly or the disadvantaged, but not this. There are people trying to help, but they are not obvious about it because of the subject and because of this, the children are ignored.' Siao wants the End Child Sexual Abuse Foundation up and running by the first half of next year.

She said reports of growing child abuse made her think the situation was getting out of hand and that there was no one dealing with it or helping the children.

Everyone saying what a difficult subject it was to tackle only made her more determined, said Siao, 51, who has a master's degree in psychology from Regis University in Denver, Colorado, specialising in child and adolescent behaviour.

Child Protection Registry figures in May showed a 21-fold increase in child sexual abuse cases from 11 in 1990, to 229 last year. The police Child Abuse Investigation Unit reported that 336 children were victims in 288 sexual abuse cases in the past two years.

More than 85 per cent of the victims were girls, 40 per cent of whom were aged between 12 and 17. More than half the boy victims were between six and 12.