From Covid-19 school closures and late vaccinations to parental separation, Hong Kong has failed its children

Policymakers have consistently ignored children’s needs and rights, and put their health at risk
Offered vaccines late, kept out of playgrounds and schools, and forcibly separated from their carers, children have been treated as an afterthought

Alice Wu

Published: 9:15am, 4 Apr 2022

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As we celebrate Children’s Day today, honour it with more than just a trip to the toy shop; honour it even if you don’t have children; honour it by seriously considering all that has been done to the detriment and at the expense of our children. Covid-19 has of course caused havoc, but it has disproportionately affected some, especially children.

There is little debate about society’s role in protecting children in Hong Kong. Before they become fully developed and are old enough to make their own decisions, it is generally accepted that we have a moral obligation to look out and provide for them, as their carers, educators and policymakers, and as society as a whole.

And so, as we look to “reopen” Hong Kong through a gradual resumption of non-essential services with the aim of full resumption within the month, it seems like the right time to remind the government of what they have done to our children – to our future.

The most obvious, of course, is the government’s continuous assault on children’s right to an education; to go to school and learn. At its worst, the government was even shutting schools because of upper respiratory tract infections.

School closures have an impact on children’s all-round development. They impede their healthy growth as human beings as much as their learning.

So much more should have been taken into account. There should have been adequate consideration of children with special needs, of those with working parents, of the underprivileged, and of those children for whom setting up online learning at home is not as easy as simply turning on a computer.

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Professor Lau Yu-lung, of the government’s Advisory Panel on Covid-19 Vaccines and Scientific Committee on Vaccine Preventable Diseases, said that over the past few years, young children in Hong Kong had been exposed to fewer cases of common human coronaviruses, which also cause flu-like symptoms – and the lack of exposure has resulted in them not having much protection against Covid-19.

We have, in the interests of public health, compromised the building and strengthening of our children’s immune systems by closing schools because of the common cold.

It is also evident, by how late children were included in the vaccination drive, that school closures were never considered a last resort. Children, whether it comes to protecting them against Covid-19 with a vaccine or to their learning opportunities, have simply been treated as an afterthought at best. Policymakers and decision-makers have consistently put our children at risk.

Parents have been panicking over the thought of being forcibly separated from their children if they or their children contract Covid-19. To have to pick between receiving medical care and a possible separation is cruel and inhumane.

Separating children with Covid-19 from parents will only cause trauma

Children have the right to good health and to not be separated from their parents against their will. How that has been swept under the carpet in our collective fight against the coronavirus is indicative of the low priority of children’s well-being in the policymaking process.

There are, of course, times when children need to be separated from their parents due to abuse, neglect or parents’ incapacity to adequately care or provide for them. Society expects such children to be protected by the authorities. Yet, it seems that Hong Kong has been failing even the children who need basic protection.

A closed playground in Kai Tak on January 7. Photo: Felix Wong

Take a look around at the still-closed playgrounds that have been cordoned off as if they were crime scenes. These are not just places where children learn playground rules and dynamics. These are safe places where children can simply play and be themselves, have a good time and make discoveries, whether it is about gravity, the process of healing, or how they can challenge themselves.

We have taken away our children’s right to play, a necessity in their lives and something recognised under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Please honour children by recognising their needs and rights.

Alice Wu is a political consultant and a former associate director of the Asia Pacific Media Network at UCLA