Children protection in Hong Kong; looking ahead to the Winter Olympics

8:30am-9:15am: children protection

8:30am-8:50am: Lester Huang, chairman of the independent review committee; Manag-ing Partner and Co-chairman of PC Woo & Co.

8:30am-9:00am: Mrs Priscilla Lui, member of the Commission on Children

8:45am-9:15am: Anthony Wong, Business Director, Hong Kong Council of Social Service

9:00am-9:15am: Robin Hammond, executive committee chairman of the Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children

9:15am-9:30am: Winter Olympics

9:15am-9:30am: Patrick Lau, Professor, Department of Sport, Physical Education and Health, Hong Kong Baptist University

Today we are talking about children protection in Hong Kong and looking ahead to the Winter Olympics. Heads up - we are discussing abuse of children and some listeners may find this difficult to listen to. Consider yourself warned.

We’re discussing this because Preliminary findings from an investigation into alleged abuse at a foster home in Prince Edward suggested that management must have been aware of the problem but did little to stop it.

The Independent Review Committee said staff had routinely subjected children under their care to rough physical treatment. It looked at security camera footage and found at least 10 incidents which it said amounted to abuse. We’re talking about kids being slapped, kicked, shaken, thrown against a padded wall, and having their ears pulled.

The director of the Society for the Protection of Children and superintendent of the Children's Residential Home run by the society have now resigned. The investigating Committee is making recommendations we’ll review and we’ll discuss if it is enough or is there a deeper systemic rot.

After 9.15am, we’ll talk about the Winter Olympics 2022 in Beijing which gets underway next Friday, on February 4.