Girl’s murder exposes the failings of system in Hong Kong
- Case of five-year-old daughter has led to renewed calls to ensure that evidence or suspicion of violent abuse against children is never again allowed to go unreported
The death of a five-year-old girl three years ago from horrific abuse at home that went unreported left the city in shock. Now a jury verdict of murder against the father and stepmother has left the question whether the system failed her, along with her battered eight-year-old brother.
This follows a month of heart-wrenching testimony from family members, teachers and doctors. It has sparked renewed demands for action to ensure that evidence or suspicion of violent abuse is never again allowed to go unreported.
It was only when the girl died of septicaemia, with 133 injuries all over her body, that doctors concluded it was a case of child abuse. Her brother had 128 injuries. They suffered physical and mental abuse over months after their divorced father found another partner and moved in with a stepgrandmother.
The girl’s kindergarten teachers observed injuries and behavioural change before she was withdrawn from the school. A social worker at the boy’s primary school called the Social Welfare Department for advice and warned the parents the police would be informed if corporal punishment was used again. But the system appears to have totally failed the siblings.
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The case prompted the government to frame new reporting guidelines for schools and social workers on campus. But critics have called for a mandatory reporting system with a legal obligation on professionals to flag cases.
A department spokesman said this was a complex question that called for community consensus. We already have an overriding consensus – that children should be protected against physical and mental abuse.
An effective reporting system is the key, as evidenced by the case of a 37-year-old mother who has confessed in court to scalding her children with hot water three times in as many days.
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Scores of countries have made reporting mandatory. Police and social welfare authorities handled more than 1,300 cases of abuse last year. The government is awaiting recommendations from the Law Reform Commission.
Whether it adopts them or not, the commission’s report should trigger concrete steps to establish a mandatory reporting system for professionals in which the safety of children is paramount.
