8.
address.
"These are weighty moral questions which any agency acting in this area has to
"It requires a highly professional judgment to strike the right balance," she maintained.
The Secretary outlined the following measures planned or taken by the Government to tackle the child abuse problem in Hong Kong:
a Child Protection Registry has been set up within the Social Welfare Department to provide comprehensive data on the profile of cases and other statistics to help better understand the problem and develop services to prevent child abuse;
the Protection of Children and Juveniles Ordinance has been amended to provide a new procedure whereby the Director of Social Welfare can serve a child assessment notice to require a parent or a guardian to take a child who is suspected of being abused for medical, psychological or social assessment or to remove the child for such purpose if the notice is not complied with;
proposed amendments will be introduced into the Legislative Council in its current session to enable abused children to testify through live television links or videotape and for their uncorroborated evidence to be accepted in court; and
five Child Protection Workers will be added in the coming financial year to the existing establishment of 11 in the Child Protective Services Unit of the Social Welfare Department to provide services for child abuse victims and their families.
In addition, the department plans to set up Multi-disciplinary District Forums on Child Abuse in four districts in 1995/96 to share, study and tackle the problem of child abuse on a district basis. A similar pilot project was set up in 1993 in Tuen Mun where there is the highest number of child abuse cases.
Mrs Fok also noted that a publicity campaign focusing on educating the general public on early detection and reporting of child abuse cases, would be launched tomorrow (Friday).
"It will include television announcements, a poster, a series of leaflets on each category of abuse and a radio programme," she said.