BACKGROUND NOTE
THE EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN IN HONG KONG
1. At present it is unlawful in Hong Kong to employ children under
14 in industrial undertakings or dangerous trades. New legislation
enacted very recently will enable that prohibition to be extended to
the full-time employment of children in non-industrial undertakings
(e.g. restaurants). The age limit will be raised to 14 in September
this year and 15 next year, except for those children who have
already completed six years of primary and three years of secondary
education.
2. However, children will still be allowed to undertake a limited
number of hours of part-time work in non-industrial undertakings.
3. Enforcement of this legislation is the responsibility of the Labour Inspectorate of the Hong Kong Labour Department (not the
Factory Inspectorate as Mr Parry seems to believe). In addition to
the regular visits to all factories carried out by the inspectors as part of their work in enforcing labour legislation generally, special campaigns are carried out periodically to detect and prosecute
employers using children illegally. These campaigns have consist-
ently revealed in recent years that fewer than 20% of factories are
involved in the illegal employment of children, and that the numbers
of children involved are only a tiny proportion of those in the
corresponding age groups.