************************
Following is a question by Hon Chan Kam-lam and a reply by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, in the Legislative Council today (June 26):
Question:
Recently, a number of parents have been separately arrested by the Police for leaving children aged 11 to 14 unattended at home. Under the existing legislation, leaving young persons or children aged under 16 unattended at home may constitute a criminal offence. Some parents have pointed out that as young persons in their early teens have certain self-care abilities, they should be allowed to act alone under specific circumstances. Those parents have also pointed out that as the number of places and scope of childcare services in the community at present are very limited, the support for parents is extremely insufficient. If parents have contravened the law by leaving their children unattended at home, it may result in the Social Welfare Department taking over their children temporarily, leading to the separation of parents from their children. A survey has shown that nearly 50% of the children interviewed indicated that if their parents were penalised for leaving them unattended at home, they would feel helpless, anxious, disappointed and lonely. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of the total number of cases in which parents were arrested in the past five years for leaving children aged under 16 unattended at home, together with a breakdown by age groups (i.e. aged below eight, eight to 11, and over 11 to 15) to which the children belonged;
(b) whether the Government has plans to review the existing legal provisions concerning the offence of leaving children unattended at home; if it has such a plan, whether it will consider lowering the upper age limit of children to whom such provisions are applicable; if it has no plan to conduct such a review, of the reasons for that; and
(c) of the respective numbers of places and service hours of government-subvented childcare services in various districts at present; whether the Government has reviewed the supply and demand of such services, and whether it will increase the number of places of the relevant services?
Reply:
President,
The reply to the three parts of Hon Chan Kam-lam's question is as follows:
(a) According to information provided by the Police, the number of cases involving children left unattended at home handled by the Police in the past five years from 2008 to 2012 are 40, 58, 60, 43 and 61 cases respectively. The Police do not keep statistics on the number of cases by the child's age and the number of cases in which the parents were arrested.
(b) The "Offences Against the Person Ordinance" (OAPO) (Cap. 212) stipulates that 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 a child is or is likely to be permanently injured; or any person who wilfully assaults, ill-treats, neglects, abandons or exposes such a child or young person under the age of 16 years under his custody, charge or care in a manner likely to cause such a child or young person unnecessary suffering or injury to his health shall be guilty of an offence. Whether leaving a child unattended at home will constitute an offence under the OAPO depends on a number of factors and has to be assessed on a case by case basis, e.g. the child's age and self-care abilities, whether the act has caused harm to the child, whether the person involved has a responsibility of care over the child, whether the person has intentionally neglected the child and is aware of the possible harm to the child caused by his act, etc.
Currently, the arrangement addressing cases involving leaving a child unattended at home is flexible enough to allow the relevant authorities to consider various factors, including the child's age, etc., when handling the cases concerned. We have no plan to review the relevant legislation at this stage.
(c) To support parents who are unable to take care of their children temporarily because of work or other reasons, the Social Welfare Department (SWD) has all along been providing subvention to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to run a variety of day childcare services for children aged below six, including Child Care Centres which are standalone or attached to kindergartens, Occasional Child Care Services, Extended Hours Services and Mutual Help Child Care Centres. At present, the aforementioned day-time childcare services offer a total of 29 000 places across the territory, with general service hours covering the mornings and afternoons of weekdays and Saturdays.
Having noted the demand by stakeholders for childcare services, we have provided more flexible services in recent years to meet the different needs of parents. In October 2008, SWD implemented the pilot scheme of the Neighbourhood Support Child Care Project (NSCCP). Upon the review of its effectiveness and demand, NSCCP was regularised and extended to all 18 districts in October 2011, offering a total of at least 720 places. The service operators have the flexibility to increase the number of home-based child care places on top of the minimum requirement set by SWD to meet the actual service demand. The service hour of NSCCP is equally flexible: from 7am to 11pm. In addition to Monday to Friday, it also covers Saturdays, Sundays and some public holidays.
Besides, SWD provides After School Care Programme (ASCP) through NGOs on a self-financing and fee-charging basis, offering support service for children aged between six and 12 to enable them to receive proper care. At present, there are 145 ASCP centres operated by NGOs, providing a total of 5 500 service places. In general, ASCP centres provide services in various sessions from 8am till 7 or 8pm. from Monday to Friday. Individual centres may also consider extending the service hours to the evening and providing services on Saturday or during summer vacation in response to the actual demand in individual districts to accommodate the working hours of parents.
SWD has all along provided needy low-income families with different forms of fee waivers or subsidies. Eligible families may apply to the NGOs direct.
We have been keeping in view the service demand and operation of various day childcare services. Efforts have been made to understand the local need for such services through District Social Welfare Offices. In general, there are still unused quotas for various childcare services. SWD will continue to monitor the operation of various services to ensure that they meet changing demand.
Ends/Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Issued at HKT 12:26
NNNN
