HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
28 June 1989
香港立法局
一九八九年六月二十八日
65
Child abuse or neglect does not always lead to fear and humiliation, but on the contrary often makes the child rebellious and leads to delinquency, especially under the additional pressure of our educational system. The comradeship of a triad gang may offer an alternative to failure in school or an unhappy home life. Triads soon spot the child who is uncared for. It is a credit to our young people that so few of them yield to triad pressures; nevertheless, far too many do succumb to those pressures and begin a life of crime or vice in their early teens. A child who is enticed into crime needs more than others the patience and care of understanding parents, but he is the least likely to have parents that care. He will probably be blamed, bullied and beaten, and driven further in the wrong direction.
There are thousands of young people in Hong Kong who commit minor crimes as teenagers, but to find their way back to being good members of society they need the help of a caring community. I regret to say that the Rehabilitation of Offenders Ordinance enacted three years ago is not likely to rehabilitate many young people. A young person influenced by a gang seldom stops at only one minor offence. It may take a few years before he sees the error of his way, but the Ordinance allows him forgiveness only once. If he has to serve a short sentence in prison, that may help to bring him to his senses, but it is already too late to rehabilitate him, because the Bill does not expunge his criminal record no matter how short the prison sentence may be. The present Ordinance falls far short of its aim to rehabilitate, and I can only hope that the Ordinance will be suitably amended to remedy these shortcomings. I hope too that the amendments will restore the power of magistrates to order that no criminal conviction be recorded. I cannot understand why the present Ordinance is so inferior to the 1974 Act in the United Kingdom. It appears that our legal system determines that once a youngster has committed an offence, he must suffer the stigma for the rest of his life, no matter how much he tries to change.
To sum up, I propose that all children should be within reach of a well- trained social worker able to advise on home problems. And for those children who fall into bad ways, I should like to see the community reach out to rehabilitate them, and to this purpose I trust that the proposed amendments to the Ordinance will soon be implemented.
Until these children at risk have been given a fair chance, we cannot claim to have protected the rights or improved the well-being of all children in Hong Kong.
Sir, with these remarks I support the motion.