CEO Shares International and Local Experiences in Child Safeguarding Policy Forum
With the support and sponsorship of Plan International Hong Kong, the Child Safeguarding Policy Forum organised by Hong Kong Committee on Children’s Rights was successfully held on 16 January 2020 at Hong Kong Scout Centre which attracted nearly a hundred participants from the child related industries.
It is everyone’s responsibility to safeguard our children; however, in many child abuse cases, it is often the people who are closed to the children who hurt them and many of them take place where the children feel secure in. The severity can be reflected by the #MeToo movement and reports of child rights violation at schools and homes. Thus, child-related organisations, institutes and professionals have to shoulder the responsibilities of child protection and ensure everyone’s position and duty can be shown in their internal policies and regulations.
Experts from various specialties were invited to attend the forum and share their expertise in child safeguarding and policymaking. Among all the speakers, Dr Kanie Siu, the CEO of Plan International Hong Kong, talked about “Overview of International Trends in Child Safeguarding: Translating global standards into local practice”.
(From the left) Forum speakers including Mr Ricky Chu, Chairperson of the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC); Dr Kanie Siu, CEO of Plan International Hong Kong; Ms Judy Kong, CEO of InspiringHK Sports Foundation and Ms Alia Eyres, CEO of Mother’s Choice discuss the application of child safeguarding policy with the audiences and forum host Mrs Priscilla Lui, Chairperson of Hong Kong Commission on Children’s Rights.
Dr Kanie Siu shares the topic of“Overview of International Trends in Child Safeguarding: Translating global standards into local practice”.
Dr Kanie Siu compares the situation of child safeguarding practices in different countries to Hong Kong and stated that countries like the United Kingdom and Australia have already made child safeguarding policy a legal requirement. For Example, in Australia, if an organisation was found to be involved in child abuses incident and no child protection training was provided in advance to prevent such incident, the organisation can be sanctioned in ways like withdrawing government funding. Meanwhile, there is a large room for improvement in the existing law in Hong Kong. Even though the government has imposed relevant safety guidelines to schools and childcare services organisations, the possible threats to children made by a staff member and caused by operational procedures are neglected. To provide references and examples, Dr Siu shared Plan International’s child safeguarding policy and experiences in setting up the policy with the audiences.
The forum attracted nearly a hundred participants from the child-related industries.
Plan International Hong Kong aims to protect children’s rights from all perspectives and has been proactively promoting local child safeguarding work and help perfect local child protection policy and system by conducting empirical researches and providing training as well as consultations to organisations. To know more about our child safeguarding policy training and consultation, please contact us at 3405 5326 or [email protected].
