Opinion | From Covid-19 school closures and late vaccinations to parental separation, Hong Kong has failed its children

Name: Covid-19: Hong Kong to open schools, lift flight ban, cut quarantine time and suspend mass testing
Uploaded: 2022-04-04T01:15:13.000Z
Duration: 3 min 30 s
Description: Covid-19: Hong Kong to open schools, lift flight ban, cut quarantine time and suspend mass testing

Policymakers have consistently ignored children’s needs and rights, and put their health at risk

Offered vaccines late, kept out of playgrounds and schools, and forcibly separated from their carers, children have been treated as an afterthought

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A child receives a free Covid-19 jab during a vaccination event at Hoi Ying Estate in Cheung Sha Wan on March 22. Photo: Nora Tam

Alice Wu

Published: 9:15am, 4 Apr 2022

As we celebrate Children’s Day today, honour it with more than just a trip to the toy shop; honour it even if you don’t have children; honour it by seriously considering all that has been done to the detriment and at the expense of our children. Covid-19 has of course caused havoc, but it has disproportionately affected some, especially children.

There is little debate about society’s role in protecting children in Hong Kong. Before they become fully developed and are old enough to make their own decisions, it is generally accepted that we have a moral obligation to look out and provide for them, as their carers, educators and policymakers, and as society as a whole.

And so, as we look to “reopen” Hong Kong through a gradual resumption of non-essential services with the aim of full resumption within the month, it seems like the right time to remind the government of what they have done to our children – to our future.

The most obvious, of course, is the government’s continuous assault on children’s right to an education; to go to school and learn. At its worst, the government was even shutting schools because of upper respiratory tract infections.

School closures have an impact on children’s all-round development. They impede their healthy growth as human beings as much as their learning.

So much more should have been taken into account. There should have been adequate consideration of children with special needs, of those with working parents, of the underprivileged, and of those children for whom setting up online learning at home is not as easy as simply turning on a computer.

03:30

Covid-19: Hong Kong to open schools, lift flight ban, cut quarantine time and suspend mass testing

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