Elsevier

Child Abuse & Neglect

Volume 35, Issue 3, March 2011, Pages 162-172
Child Abuse & Neglect

Children's views on child abuse and neglect: Findings from an exploratory study with Chinese children in Hong Kong

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2010.12.001Get rights and content

Abstract

Objectives

This research study explored children's views on issues about child abuse in Hong Kong and examined their implications on child protection work and research in Chinese societies.

Method

Six primary schools were recruited from different districts of Hong Kong. Five vignettes of child maltreatment in the form of flash movies were presented to 87 children in 12 focus groups for discussion. The process was video-taped and the data were transcribed verbatim for data analysis by NUDIST.

Results

(1) Children do not have a homogeneous view on issues about child abuse and neglect, and their awareness and sensitivity to different kinds of child abuse are also different; (2) some of their views on child abuse and neglect are uniquely their own and are markedly different from those of adults; (3) some of the views expressed by children, however, are very much akin to those of adults, such as the factors they would consider in deciding whether a case is child abuse or not; (4) children's disclosure of abuse in Hong Kong is often affected by the Chinese culture in which they live, like filial piety and loyalty to parents.

Conclusion

Children's views on issues of child abuse and neglect, no matter they are the same or different from those of adults, serve to inform and improve child protection work. Children are not only victims in need of protection. They are also valuable partners with whom adult practitioners should closely work.

Practice implications

Children have, and are able to give, views on child abuse. They should be listened to in any child protection work no matter their views are same with or different from those of adults. As this study suggests, the relatively low sensitivity of the children to child neglect and sexual abuse, and their reluctance to disclose abuse and neglect due to their loyalty to parents are areas to focus on in preventive child protection work in a Chinese society like Hong Kong.

Introduction

Child abuse has become an international concern and has been discussed extensively in developed countries and regions. However, defining, understanding, and intervening in child abuse are often based on the perspective of adults with the middle class background in developed countries. It is true that the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child declared that every child has the right to express an opinion and to have that opinion taken into account in any matter or procedure affecting the child (Article 12), however, children are still often regarded as adults’ preparation or as immature adults, being incompetent or having incomplete, unformed, or proto-competences that render them not independent subjects of rights, but rather targets to be protected, disciplined, and educated by adults. Often, children's rights to be heard are conditioned by judgments about a child's developmental capacity to understand their situation and to form a meaningful opinion (James, Jenks, & Prout, 1998). In many situations, adults are still spokesmen for the children's world and consider children to be incompetent or immature. Children's voices on problems that affect them are not commonly audible (Gough, 1993, Robinson and Kellett, 2004).

In recognition of their need to be heard, some studies began to research children's perspectives on different matters affecting them (e.g., Fraser et al., 2004, Lewis et al., 2004, Lewis and Lindsay, 2000). In studying domestic violence, attempts have been made to involve children in research on child protection since the late 1990s (Westcott and Davies, 1996, Williamson and Butler, 1997, Willow and Hyder, 1998). In their book on Children's Perspectives on Domestic Violence, Mullender et al. (2002) concluded that listening to children who have lived with domestic violence has offered them the chance to see familiar problems from a new, child-centered perspective, which has very practical implications for working with children who are in need of protection. Increasingly, listening to children has become a fundamental concern of the child protection professionals (Cashmore, 2002, Goodman et al., 2002, Jones, 2002).

While children's voices on domestic violence have begun to appear in countries like the US and the UK, little is known about how these children's views are different from their counterparts in other societies, or indeed from children of different ethnic origins within those countries. This is especially the case in the context of Chinese societies where some practices of physical punishment are still widely considered by many adults as a legitimate means of inculcating child discipline. Since the early 1980s, research studies conducted in Hong Kong have consistently found a high tolerance of physical discipline among Chinese parents. Lieh-Mak, Chung, and Liu (1983) found that spanking and scolding were regarded by Chinese as the most effective methods to be used in child rearing. The study by Samuda (1988) showed that physical punishment was used in 95% of the homes of university students in Hong Kong, and in 46% the most severe form of punishment was beating. In a community survey of 1,019 households conducted in November 2005, Tang (1998) found that the base rate of minor violence against children by parents was 526 per 1,000 children and that for severe violence 461 per 1,000 children. Another study of cross-sectional household interviews conducted in 1998 revealed that the rate of physical punishment of children by parents was 57.5% (Tang, 2006). The rate of physical violence against children by parents yielded by studies in the past 2 decades is unequivocally high, especially when compared with other developed societies.

Compared with studies on physical punishment, studies of psychological maltreatment and neglect of children in Hong Kong are rare. Two territory-wide community surveys commissioned by the Government were carried out in 1998 and 2005. The survey on adult parents in Hong Kong by Tang, Pun, and Lai (1999) revealed that 67.7% of parent respondents have engaged in 1 or more psychologically abusive behaviors for at least once in the year preceding the study. The most prevalent forms of psychologically abusive behaviors were insulting or swearing at and sulking or refusing to talk to the children. The overall rate of physically neglecting children aged 10 or below was 34.3%. The most prevalent form of child neglect behaviors among Hong Kong parents was leaving children alone at home (29.4%). Another household survey by Chan (2005) showed that 72% of child respondents had ever encountered psychological aggression by either of or both their parents. Fifty-eight percent said that at least 1 of their parents had been psychologically aggressive to them in the 12 months prior to the study. In the same survey, 36% of child respondents indicated that their parents had ever neglected them, 27% of them said they had been physically neglected by the parents in the 12 months prior to enumeration. It appears from the findings of these 2 community surveys that psychological maltreatment and child neglect by parents are very common among Chinese parents in Hong Kong.

The prevalence of different forms of child maltreatment is related to certain features of the Chinese culture, specifically that of filial piety of the Confucius teachings (Chiu, 1987, O’Brian, 1997). Chinese parents traditionally stressed their authority over their children and expect unquestioning obedience from them (Ryan, 1985). They believe that corporal punishment has an educational purpose, not least a necessary devil, but a needed means to train up discipline, integrity, and moral character of their children (Ho, 1986, Kwok and Tam, 2005, O’Brian, 1997). In fact, coupling of “parental authority” and “filial piety” is one of the core elements of the “Five Ethical Principles” advocated by Confucius. Under the spell of Confucianism, Chinese people since birth were molded into group-oriented, relation-oriented and socially interdependent beings through these “Five Ethical Principles.” Children's failures to comply with parent's instructions or meeting parents’ expectations are often regarded as “impious” and deserving punishments (Chao and Tseng, 2002, Tang, 1998, Wu, 1981). Most Chinese children face more social barriers to exert their individuality, at least when compared with children being socialized in Western culture. Given the adult-centric and patriarchal character of Chinese societies, parents tend to have low awareness of psychological abuse, neglect, and other forms of child maltreatment as well. Chinese parents show little concern about damaging a child's self-esteem (O’Brian & Lau, 1995). They commonly scold, beat, and shame their children in the public (Ho, 1986, O’Brian, 1997). In the Chinese cultural context, parents are heedless of their neglectful behaviors and tyranny over their children in the midst of their parental authority.

Despite low visibility and awareness of child maltreatment, its prevalence has occasionally caught public attention. Since the late 1970s, a number of child protection measures have been instituted in Hong Kong. These include setting up of the Against Child Abuse in 1979 (the first NGO specializing in child protection in Hong Kong) and the Child Protection Services Unit (now the Family and Child Protection Services Unit) under the Social Welfare Department in 1983, establishment of the Working Group on Child Abuse, implementation and regular revisions of the procedures for handling child abuse cases since 1983, opening of the Central Register for Child Abuse and Neglect in 1989, revision of the former Protection of Women and Juvenile Ordinance into the Protection of the Children and Juveniles Ordinance in 1993, and inauguration of the Child Protection Special Investigation Teams since 1995 (Chan, 2000, O’Brian and Lau, 1995). These measures are child protective by nature and valuable in improving the plight of children. However, they tend to reflect the concerns of adults. The views of the children on child maltreatment are neither directly heard nor their interest fully reflected in these protective measures. Participation of child victims in the Multi-disciplinary Case Conference on Child Abuse is currently not a standard practice in the Procedural Guides for Handling Child Abuse Cases in Hong Kong (Revised 2007). The quest for setting up of a Children's Commission in Hong Kong has been rejected by the Government which responded that, “having carefully examined these proposals [for a children's commission], we [the Government] considered that they were not necessary either to give effect to the convention [UNCRC] or as a practical response to its requirements” (Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, 2003). In child protection, as in other areas of child welfare, children have unique and special needs which should not be looked at only from adults’ perspective. Children's views on child abuse and protection should also be systematically collected in Hong Kong.

This paper reports the findings of a research study with Hong Kong Chinese children using focus group discussion as the main vehicle of data collection. It attempts to answer two basic questions. First, how do children in Hong Kong view the main issues surrounding child abuse and neglect? Second, in what ways can their views inform our child protection practice in Chinese societies in general, and in Hong Kong in particular? This research study has two features which may make it a ground-breaking effort in Hong Kong. First, this is the first and foremost systematic endeavor to collect the views of Hong Kong children on child maltreatment and child protection. Second, the child maltreatment problem is often not given due attention and the views of many children are conveniently neglected. These suggest a cultural dominant view where children were regarded as immature beings with little ability to exercise their agency. This study began with the assumption that Hong Kong Chinese children, like other children elsewhere in the world, are capable of forming their own views of child abuse and neglect, and making sensible and logical reasoning on matters in relation to child abuse. While children are products of their culture and society, they are not precluded from using elements of this culture as a springboard for exercising their agency. Like Giddens’ (1984) notion of “structure,” culture is both constraining and enabling; therefore, as products of Chinese culture, children may have blind spots that could prevent them from understanding child abuse and neglect correctly, but at the same time, they are capable of making sense and using this culture in the course of their reflections.

Section snippets

Methods

The purpose of the research is to explore children's perspectives on child abuse. For purposes of this study, we have adopted a qualitative research methodology on account of the following reasons. First, this is an exploratory study that attempts to explore children's views on child abuse. Since this is an area where there is much that we do now know, a quantitative approach, no matter how carefully designed, runs the risk of overlooking emergent issues and properties generated or discovered

Children's awareness of child abuse and neglect

All children participating in this study were asked to discuss and give their views on whether or not vignettes presented to them constitute cases of child abuse and neglect. Table 3 presents the results of their views, which indicate that awareness of child abuse and neglect differs with respect to nature of cases. It can be seen that children as a group did not have a homogenous view on the vignettes presented to them for discussion in the group interviews. Their understanding varied,

Discussion

There are several limitations to this study. First, despite being a research with children, the study was conducted by adult researchers. The use of child-friendly data collection methods and researchers’ sensitivity to children's needs may have reduced the distance between researchers and child participants. However, the power difference between the adult researchers and child informants is still a potential threat to the validity of findings in this study. Second, the research was conducted

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