Cradle to the grave

It's a familiar story told too many times, and it has a tragic end.

An unmarried girl secretly gives birth. She is alone; one helpless child burdened with another. In this tale, it is the innocent who perishes, at the hands of the ignorant - a teenage mother.

Last year, seven cases of newborn babies killed by their young mothers were reported in Hong Kong, a significant number for a city in which the police logged 35 homicides (four of which were among the seven reported cases of infanticide) in the same period. Three of the cases involved teenagers, the most tragic conclusion to the often desperate circumstances that surround teen pregnancies.

In 2009, 126 babies were born to mothers under the age of 18, out of more than 1,300 born in the past decade. That year, 323 girls under the age of 18 obtained lawful abortions in Hong Kong, according to government figures, while countless others had terminations on the mainland.

A higher proportion of Hong Kong teens are having sex now than ever before - and starting at a younger age - but a conservative streak runs strong through the city, dominating the territory's response to an increasingly sexual teen population.

Hong Kong is a conservative city, a legacy of neo-Confucian culture combined with Christian education, says Emil Ng Man-lun, a psychiatrist who has advocated for stronger sex education here and in the mainland.

'It is more conservative than mainland China and Taiwan,' he says.