MR YIU SI-WING (in Cantonese): Deputy President, sexual violence and child abuse are issues that our society needs to address. Sexual violence is no rare occurrence in different countries and cultures, and victims of sexual violence can be people of any gender and age. For child abuse, as the abused children usually do not have adequate knowledge of their rights and schools may adopt different approaches to domestic violence cases, it always happens that child abuse cases are not handled in time. No matter whether it is a sexual violence or child abuse case, the psychological impact experienced by the victims can be very serious and persistent and may even affect their entire life. As a civilized city with the rule of law, Hong Kong certainly needs a mechanism to help the victims.

In recent years, the number of sexual violence and child abuse cases received by the Social Welfare Department ("SWD") has shown a rising trend. In 2017, 967 cases of sexual violence were reported to SWD, representing an increase of 12.3% as compared with 2016, and that means there were around 2 or more cases relating to sexual violence every day on average. Similarly, the number of child abuse cases is also on an increasing trend from year to year, with the number of reported cases growing from 874 in 2015 to 947 in 2017. The situation should not be ignored.

I concur with the suggestion of Dr CHAN made in the original motion that a 24-hour crisis support centre should be set up in three regions respectively, with reference to the Guidelines for medico-legal care for victims of sexual violence ("the Guideline") issued by the World Health Organization. Meanwhile, abused children should be included as their targets of support as suggested by the Guideline. This approach is practicable. Going through the Guideline, one can see that it covers a wide scope of areas, including the specific details of the support services, the scope of services, and the ways to assess and follow up cases. The Guidelines set down the standards for handling these cases by the frontline staff, specifying the requirements in respect of various aspects such as medical treatment, forensic examination and follow-up work of social workers. Even though no support centre has been set up yet and the Government claims that a one-stop arrangement is already available, I still consider the Guidelines a useful reference for the frontline medical personnel, police officers and social workers.

President, sexual violence can occur in different circumstances, such as home environment, workplace, schools, the community, etc. In many cases, victims of sexual violence are too embarrassed to mention their experiences under the pressure from the surrounding environment. Failure to handle these cases in a timely manner will cause the victims to suffer from varying degrees of emotional or psychological disorders. As regards child abuse cases, according to the latest statistics of this year submitted by SWD, nearly 70% abusers were parents of the victims, and this type of cases are often more difficult to detect. Information of the Royal College of Psychiatrists shows that people who have experienced sexual violence and physical abuse, regardless of age, will suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Therefore, the authorities must handle these cases with care and formulate comprehensive follow-up procedures. Under the current approach, victims of sexual violence need to go through long and complicated procedures. They have to travel among the police station, hospital and office of forensic pathologists to repeat the facts of their cases to the police officers and medical staff again and again. Not only will this evoke the relevant memories of the victims, it may also subject them to secondary victimization because of the repeated questioning by the relevant officers. This year, there have been media reports that some victims ultimately gave up pursing their cases after they learnt about the need to go through medical and legal procedures lasting between 10 and 24 hours. The lengthy investigation process and tiresome legal procedures are, therefore, the reasons for the low prosecution rate which Dr Fernando CHEUNG mentioned just now. Such situation shows that the Administration needs to review the existing policy and approach. I guess that the situation about the handling of child abuse cases is more or less the same. Hence, I share Ms Alice MAK's view about setting up one-stop crisis support centres with a professional team handling the cases so as to avoid subjecting the victims to secondary victimization.

As for Mr SHIU Ka-chun's amendment, he proposed that two professional teams should be formed in each crisis support centre, with one team dedicated to handling sexual violence cases and the other for child abuse cases. I have some reservations about it. While his proposal is well-intentioned, it is too idealistic. With an increasing demand for public health care services from the community, the waiting situation has not been improved despite a substantial increase in the fees and charges for the use of accident and emergency services. Due to the pressure of the working environment, there is a high turnover of full-time doctors and nurses in the front line. The shortage of manpower is simply an obvious fact. The Government has begun discussing with the University Grants Committee about increasing the number of subsidized places for health care professionals, in a bid to attract more people to join the public health care system. However, these measures alone cannot resolve the present problem of manpower shortage. Given the present manpower, I think setting up a professional team in each centre is already a difficult task. If we are to set up two professional teams to provide one-stop services, it will only add to the pressure of the public health care system and indirectly affect other public health care services. Therefore, if it is the decision of the Government to establish crisis support centres for handling more complex cases of sexual violence and child abuse, it should make proper allocation of manpower resources and draw up a reasonable budget for the centres. The process for handling relevant cases should be streamlined as much as possible so that the cases can be handled properly with the victims suffering from minimal impact and the perpetrators being brought to justice.

President, I so submit.