Letters | Hong Kong sports sector coming up short on safeguarding children

Simply parroting the definition of sexual abuse and exhorting people in positions of trust to behave is not enough
Without correcting operational defects, the risk of child abuse in Hong Kong’s institutions cannot be eradicated

Education in Hong Kong

Letters

Published: 7:30am, 18 Sep 2020

Why you can trust SCMP

Three years ago, athlete Vera Lui Lai-yiu’s claim that she had been sexually assaulted startled the Hong Kong sports sector. Appalled by the scandal, the Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong Kong, China, provided coaches with training on sexual harassment prevention in collaboration with the Equal Opportunities Commission. This effort is appreciated, but more needs to be done to safeguard children in the sports sector.

We might assume that risks of sexual abuse would be best eradicated by an organisational policy to prevent sexual harassment, but research on child abuse shows sexual abuse seldom occurs on its own. According to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses into Child Sexual Abuse, 89.1 per cent of sexually abused children also experienced psychological abuse. Other forms of child abuse also tend to precede or happen along with child sexual abuse.

Sexual and other forms of child abuse are often enmeshed in an environment with operational deficiencies that allows abuse in the first place – no proper regulations of interaction between adults and children, failure to listen to children and a culture where everyone clams up about suspicions of child abuse. Simply parroting the definition of sexual abuse and exhorting people in the positions of trust not to abuse children would be reaching for low-hanging fruit.

Without correcting operational defects, there is no way we can truly eradicate the risk of child abuse in child-related institutions. In recognition of this, many sports institutions in Australia and England are implementing a “child safeguarding policy” to meet national standards on the matter. With clear standards and guidelines, such a policy stipulates all reasonable steps an organisation has to take to ensure children’s safety.

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In Hong Kong, many sports organisations lag behind in implementing child safeguarding policies. According to the results of our first situation analysis study, 46 per cent of the sports institutions implemented half or less than half of the 20 child safeguarding standards we proposed.

With the lack of common child safeguarding standards, staff are often left to respond with their own judgment, putting both the children’s safety and staff’s reputation at risk. To ensure children’s safety, it is time for the government and Hong Kong’s sports federation to lay down the preferable operation norms for sports institutions and incorporate these standards into training for coaches, existing regulations and funding requirements.

Dr Kanie Siu, CEO, Plan International Hong Kong

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