While the Ordinance establishes an important safety net for identifying and intervening in child abuse cases, legislation alone is not enough to ensure children’s safety. A strong safeguarding culture must be developed across society to prevent abuse at its root and reinforce the protection that the law provides. To this end, Save the Children Hong Kong calls for three key steps to strengthen the city’s child protection ecosystem:
1. Expand the Scope of Mandatory Reporters
Under the new law, 25 categories of professionals in education, social welfare and healthcare sectors are required to report suspected serious child abuse cases identified in the course of their work.
CEO of Save the Children Hong Kong, Kalina Tsang, urges the Government to review the implementation of the law in due course and to actively consider expanding the mandatory reporting obligation to all professionals who work with children, such as front-line staff, private tutors, sports and activity coaches, and religious leaders. This would ensure a more comprehensive safety net for children.
2. Integrate Child Safeguarding Training into Professional Education
As part of professional training, we advocate embedding Child Safeguarding courses into relevant tertiary education programmes. This will equip future professionals in education, social welfare and healthcare sectors with child‑centred values and skills from the outset of their careers, fostering a stronger preventative culture across these fields.
In 2025, Save the Children Hong Kong’s Child Safeguarding Service delivered tailor-made workshops and policy guidance to 40 non-profit organisations, activity and education centres, and tertiary institutions – reaching nearly 600 participants – about the requirements of the new law, equipping frontline practitioners to comply with confidence.
Kalina Tsang said:
“Looking ahead, we will deepen collaboration with tertiary institutions to establish regular elective courses on Child Safeguarding, creating a systematic approach to nurturing professional talent in this field.
We call on universities and training institutions to learn from successful local and international examples by integrating Child Safeguarding into their professional curricula, together fostering a safer and more caring environment for every child.”
3. Implement Child Safeguarding Policies across All Child-related Organisations; Regulate Training for All Staff
At the organisational level, Kalina Tsang advocates that all child-facing organisations should establish and implement Child Safeguarding Policies, covering behavioural standards, measures in data protection and delivering safe programmes, reporting and handling of safety concerns, as well as monitoring and accountability mechanisms, to ensure children’s safety across all operations.
Findings from Save the Children Hong Kong’s recently published report, “Children’s Views on Safety Within Organisations In Hong Kong”, showed that half of the children surveyed did not have a trustworthy adult in the organisations they engaged with, and nearly one-third felt their opinions were not respected. This indicates a concerning lack of safeguarding culture, which may hinder children from reporting abuse.
Children come into contact with a wide range of child-serving organisations and groups. As a next step after the new law’s implementation, all child-facing organisations must make child safeguarding training a core requirement. All representatives, from front-line staff and volunteers to managers and leadership, must complete training within a specified timeframe after onboarding (e.g., within three months), and should receive annual refresher training to equip them with relevant knowledge and skills.
Child abuse in any form is one case too many. Save the Children Hong Kong is committed to building a preventive culture through community-based initiatives such as the Child Safeguarding Service, which helps child-serving organisations enhance their child-safety knowledge and practices, and the Heart to Heart Programme, which supports parents in adopting a positive discipline approach. We aim to work together with all sectors of society to create a safe, respectful and caring environment for every child.
*Note: Child Safeguarding refers to the responsibility of organisations to ensure that all children they engage with are protected from harm or risks of harm. It includes establishing child safety codes and standards to ensure that staff, programmes and operations do no harm to children.