Time to get serious about domestic violence in Hong Kong by strengthening the law
Always a blight on society, domestic violence is now a major social problem. The Social Welfare Department has reported that there were 3,836 cases of spousal abuse in 2013, with 3,012 spousal or partner battering cases in the first nine months of last year, half of which involved families with children aged below 12. Of great concern is the extent to which children in problem families are affected by their experiences, with many of them, as the department found, becoming prone to violence in later life.
Domestic violence is a general term used to describe conduct whereby a person controls or dominates someone else over whom they have a close or family relationship. It often involves a series of abusive incidents, and can include extreme violence in situations where the victim is dependent on the offender, with a cycle of abuse continuing until it is finally broken. The long-term effects on the victim can be devastating. The department found that more than 50 per cent of people who abused their spouses had a history of family violence.
Although the Domestic and Cohabitation Relationships Violence Ordinance was enacted in 2010, it only provides civil remedies to victims. There is no specific crime of domestic violence, which hampers law enforcers. While the Department of Justice’s guidelines recognise that “stopping domestic violence is a priority for the prosecutor”, the scale of offending indicates that the existing tools for prosecution are inadequate.
At present, prosecutors have to rely on the general criminal law to target offenders, using such offences as homicide, wounding, assault and criminal intimidation, but more is now required. Any meaningful definition of domestic violence must, however, encompass coercive control, which can be no less damaging than physical violence. Yet such conduct invariably escapes criminal sanction, which leaves its victims unprotected. The criminal law must now be sharpened.
In the United Kingdom, where it is estimated that as many as 1.2 million women experience some kind of domestic abuse each year, the Serious Crime Bill, to be enacted shortly, creates a new law on domestic violence, specifically targeting psychological and emotional abuse. Patterns of repeated or continuous coercive or controlling behaviour, where perpetrated against an intimate partner or family member and which causes the victim to feel fear, alarm or distress, will be criminalised and punishable with 14 years’ imprisonment.
When similar laws were introduced in the United States, they resulted in a 50 per cent increase in the number of women coming forward to report domestic violence. The British parliamentarian, Elfyn Llwyd, who has championed domestic violence law reform, has said that “for every single act of abuse or violence there are usually 30 or more previous occurrences which have not been the subject of any reporting”.
