ON APRIL 11, 31-year-old Kim Shuk-ying and her five- and six-year-old daughters were stabbed to death at their Tin Shui Wai public housing flat, believed murdered by her jobless husband, Li Pak-sum, 44, who died of stab wounds in hospital 12 days later. Kim, who came from the mainland to join her husband in Hong Kong three years ago, had complained to social workers and police about her violent spouse. But to no avail.
The shocking incident highlighted a multitude of social problems. Government figures show the number of reported spousal abuse cases has risen from 1,000 in 1996 to 3,298 last year. The number of reported child abuse cases jumped from 311 to 481 in the same period, figures some experts say are still only a fraction of the real situation.
Last month, the Hong Kong Council of Social Service released its bi-yearly family solidarity index comparing marriage, divorce and domestic violence rates to those recorded during the economic boom of the 1980s and 90s. The index, rated on a lower-is-worse basis, plunged from zero in 1996 to minus 150 in 2002.
Last year, 35,439 couples were married in Hong Kong, while 13,829 couples were granted a divorce. The council says cuts to government services and the economic downturn are the main factors causing the breakdown of many families. Yeung Ka-ching, assistant professor of the department of social work and social administration at the University of Hong Kong, who studies marital conflict, says people have been under stress for some years and that their problems are now exploding.
'Out of 1.6 million families in Hong Kong, about 500,000 have economic problems,' he says, citing the knock-on effect of an average of 277,600 people out of work last year and almost half as many unable to find full-time employment.
It was against this backdrop that new mum Eunice Cheng Oi-ling decided to highlight the positive side of Hong Kong families. Shocked by recent stories of domestic violence, the Caltex Oil public relations executive organised a photographic competition to encourage families to focus on family harmony by submitting their favourite domestic images.