Traditional Chinese Simplified Chinese Email this article news.gov.hk
LCQ17: Children being left unattended at home
*********************************************

     Following is a question by the Hon Tanya Chan and a written reply by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, in the Legislative Council today (January 20):

Question:

     Some parents have relayed to me that in recent years, incidents of parents or guardians leaving children unattended at home occurred from time to time, with some incidents even involving injuries of children, and the situation has aroused concern.  They have also pointed out that the existing occasional child care services available in the community are inadequate, and if parents have important matters to handle and need occasional care for their children, they would encounter great difficulties and sometimes unavoidably need to abandon a trip or take the risk of temporarily leaving their young children unattended at home.  In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

(a) given that the last large-scale survey conducted by the Administration on the situation of children being left unattended at home was conducted in 1997, which was more than 12 years ago, whether the Government will consider conducting a survey study on this matter again; if it will, of the specific plan; if not, the reasons for that;

(b) given that at present the Government normally invokes the Offences Against The Person Ordinance (Cap. 212) in dealing with cases of children being left unattended at home, whether the Government will review the current practice; if it will, of the specific details and follow-up actions; if not, the reasons for that;

(c) given that some parents have pointed out that the problem of children being left unattended at home has not improved all these years and there are signs of its getting worse each day, whether the Government will formulate new policies and measures to further improve the situation; if it will, of the details; if not, the reasons for that;

(d) of the expenditure incurred by the Government on dealing with the problem of children being left unattended at home in the past three financial years; whether it will adjust the relevant estimates of expenditure in the 2010-2011 Budget; if it will, of the specific details; if not, the reasons for that;

(e) whether the Government has any plan at present to study the introduction of legislation to prohibit children being left unattended at home; if it will, of the progress and the plan of the work concerned; if not, the reasons for that; and

(f) whether it knows the respective numbers of places and service hours of subvented child care services in various districts; whether the Government has conducted any review on the supply and demand of such services; if it has, of the outcome and follow-up actions; if not, whether the Government will consider commencing such a review within a short period; if it will, of the details; if not, the reasons for that?

Reply:

President,

     Parents have every responsibility to take care of their young children.  Those who are unable to do so temporarily for reasons such as work or other engagements should arrange for their relatives, friends, neighbours or child minders to provide assistance, or to make use of the various available child care services.  It is incumbent upon parents to make appropriate arrangements for their children.  Under no circumstances should they run the risk of leaving their children unattended at home.

     My responses to the six parts of the Hon Tanya Chan's question are as follows:

(a) The Administration has been very concerned about the problem of young children being left unattended at home.  Our objective is to minimise its occurrence through the provision of different support services and measures as well as various publicity and public education efforts.  The Administration has no plan at present to conduct any survey on the situation of children being left unattended at home.
 
(b) Leaving children unattended at home is very dangerous.  Apart from causing harm to the children, the safety of neighbours can be put at risk.  Besides, parents and carers may have to face criminal liability arising from negligence in care. In accordance with the Offences against the Person Ordinance (Cap 212), any person who unlawfully abandons or exposes any child, being under the age of two years, whereby the life of such child is endangered, or the health of such child is or is likely to be permanently injured; or any person over the age of 16 years who wilfully assaults, ill-treats, neglects, abandons or exposes any child or young person under the age of 16 years under his custody, charge or care in a manner likely to cause such child or young person unnecessary suffering or injury to his health, shall be guilty of an offence.  If convicted, the maximum penalty is imprisonment for 10 years.  We consider that the relevant Ordinance can offer effective protection for the safety of children.  The Police have also made use of the said provisions to successfully prosecute persons who left their children unattended at home.

(c) The Administration adopts a multi-pronged approach to deal with the problem of leaving children unattended at home.  Through publicity and public education, we impress upon parents the need for them to take their parental responsibility seriously and to avoid leaving their children unattended at home.  In addition, we also render assistance and support to needy parents by providing them with flexible child care services.  Details are as set out below:

     The Social Welfare Department (SWD) has, all along, through different promotional and educational activities, reminded parents of the need to take good care of their children.  These include the promotion of the messages of "Be a responsible parent. Let children grow happily", "Take good care of your children. Don't leave them alone" and "Child neglect is a criminal offence", etc. through television programmes, radio announcements, newspaper advertisements, parent-child magazines, parent-child websites, posters, pamphlets and souvenirs, etc.  SWD has also included the relevant messages in its publicity campaigns on combating domestic violence and training for frontline professional staff.  

     In addition, the 61 integrated family service centres, two integrated services centres and 22 family life education units over the territory also provide parents with the necessary knowledge and skills on child caring through various kinds of groups, activities and counselling services.

     To provide support to families who cannot take care of their young children temporarily because of work or other reasons, and to avoid the situation of children being left unattended at home, the Government provides subvention to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for them to run various kinds of child care services for the needy families.  We also strive to increase the flexibility of such services.  While regular care services through independent child care centres (CCCs) and kindergarten-cum-child care centres (KG-cum-CCCs) will continue to be provided, SWD has also proactively introduced new child care services which are more flexible and with operating hours covering evenings, weekends and holidays so as to better meet the service demands.  These include -

     - subsidising foster homes and some small group homes, which originally provided only residential care services, to provide day care services since October and December 2007 respectively;

     - subsidising Mutual Help Child Care Centres (MHCCCs) to provide services in the evenings, at weekends and on holidays since January 2008; and

     - implementing the Neighbourhood Support Child Care Project (NSCCP) through NGOs/district organisations since October 2008, with a view to providing needy parents with more flexible child care services in addition to the regular services, and, at the same time, fostering mutual help and care in the community.  The NSCCP has two service components: (i) home-based child care service for children under six, and (ii) centre-based care group for children aged three to six.  Under the project, carers in the neighbourhood are hired and trained to take care of children at centres run by the service operators (centre-based care group) or at the carers' homes (home-based child care service).

     Moreover, the Government also assists the community in establishing neighbourhood mutual help networks through the Community Investment and Inclusion Fund (CIIF).  Since the establishment of the CIIF in 2002, about $200 million has been allocated to fund more than 200 projects.  About 40% of the projects include elements of child care or after-school care services on a neighbourhood mutual aid basis.

(d) In the 2007-08, 2008-09 and 2009-10 financial years, the expenditures/estimates of the Government on day child care services are $106.6 million (actual expenditure), $89.2 million (revised estimate) and $98.4 million (draft estimate) respectively*.  

     Furthermore, to implement the NSCCP mentioned above, the Government has set aside an additional provision of $45 million for the costs of the trial run of the project for three years (from 2008-09 to 2010-11).

     SWD does not have the breakdown on the expenditures on public education, publicity and other activities relating to preventing the situation of children being left unattended at home.

(e) We are of the view that the proposal of legislating against leaving children unattended at home, though well-intended to protect children from harm, may not achieve its desired objective.  For instance, some parents may seek to circumvent the legal responsibility by asking their children to wait outside their homes or wander in shopping centres and on the streets.  These situations cannot be prevented by the proposed legislation, and there are practical difficulties involved in implementing such legislation.  On the contrary, the existing legislation on child neglect focuses on whether a certain conduct has caused harm to the child, whether the person involved has a duty of care, whether he/she has an intent to neglect the child and is aware of the possible harm done to the child due to such conduct, etc., irrespective of where the child is located.  We believe that the existing legislation is more effective in protecting the safety of children.

     We have made reference to the practice in some overseas jurisdictions.  To our understanding, the criminal provisions for handling child neglect under the relevant legislation in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Singapore are similar to the provisions in the Offences against the Person Ordinance mentioned above.  These jurisdictions do not have separate provisions which make leaving children unattended at home a criminal offence.  

(f) On top of the 690 regular service places of CCCs and 80,517 regular service places of KG-cum-CCCs, parents who are unable to take care of their children temporarily because of important or sudden engagements may also make use of child care services which are of occasional nature, including Occasional Child Care Service (OCCS), Extended Hours Service, MHCCCs and NSCCP.

     The service hours of OCCS are from 8am to 6pm on Monday to Friday and from 8am to 1pm on Saturday.  If there is a need for care service outside these hours, parents can use the Extended Hours Service, and the service hours are normally from 6pm to 8pm on Monday to Friday and from 1pm to 3pm on Saturday.  The service hours of MHCCCs are set by individual centres according to their different circumstances.  SWD has also required centres which have joined the "Subsidy Scheme for Mutual Help Child Care Centres" to provide services to needy families by appointment from 6pm to 10pm on Monday to Friday and for eight hours of services on Saturday, Sunday and public holidays.  For NSCCP, the service hours for its home-based child care service for children under six are from 7am to 11pm, whereas the centre-based care group for children aged three to six also operates until at least 9pm on weekdays, with services covering some weekends and holidays as well.

     The number of places of the above services in each of SWD's 11 administrative districts is shown at Annex.  

     SWD has been closely monitoring the service demands and operation of its various child care services to ensure that the concerned services can satisfy the demands of different districts.  The operating hours of the above child care services should be able to meet the needs of most parents who are unable to take care of their children temporarily because of work or other reasons.  Nonetheless, I have to emphasise that parents are the best carers for their children.  From the perspective of child welfare, leaving children to the hands of other carers for excessively long hours may not be in the best interest of the children.  For parents who are unable to take care of their children for an extended period of time, we suggest that they should approach social workers to work out a comprehensive plan for taking care of their children, which may involve the use of different types of residential child care services.

* The figures do not include the fee subsidy for service users under the "Kindergarten and Child Care Centre Fee Remission Scheme" administered by the Student Financial Assistance Agency and the "Pre-primary Education Voucher Scheme" by the Education Bureau (EDB).  Besides, there was a decrease in the expenditures since the 2007-08 financial year and the reason is as follows: EDB originally provided subsidy to some KG-cum-CCCs through the "Kindergarten and Child Care Centre Subsidy Scheme".  From 2007/08 school year onwards, these KG-cum-CCCs can cover their operating expenses with the subsidy (in form of vouchers) provided by EDB to the eligible kindergarten students under the "Pre-primary Education Voucher Scheme" like other non-profit making kindergartens which have joined the scheme.  The services provided for children aged three to six by these KG-cum-CCCs therefore no longer receive subsidy under the "Kindergarten and Child Care Centre Subsidy Scheme".

Ends/Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Issued at HKT 12:46

NNNN

Print this page