Spike in child abuse cases in Hong Kong coincides with exam time, research shows
Spotlight on stay-at-home parents who lack a support network as paediatricians link school exam time with an increase in child abuse incidents in Hong Kong
The strain Hong Kong’s high-pressure education system places on families has been highlighted by new research showing a spike in child abuse cases coinciding with the school exam season.
Patrick Ip Pak-keung, a paediatrician at Queen Mary Hospital, says the researchers have identified a decade-long uptick in hospital visits resulting from child abuse around the time children are sitting for exams. In the cases examined, doctors have found reports of bruises on hands, feet and places that are hard to injure, such as the inner thighs and stomach. More serious cases involve children with damaged joints or bone fractures.
“Paediatricians in various hospitals in Hong Kong have [long] suspected that there’s a seasonal pattern to these cases of children coming to the hospital … but this was just something we observed,” Ip says. “[Paediatricians and social workers at the Social Welfare Department] all have the impression that child abuse is getting worse in Hong Kong, and suspect it’s related to the education system or the unnecessary stress parents have to face from schools.”
Ip, a clinical associate professor in the University of Hong Kong’s department of paediatrics and adolescent medicine, investigated the line of enquiry with peers at HKU, Chinese University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine. Their results, published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood in July, show the number of child abuse cases leading to hospital visits stood at 73.4 per 100,000 children in 2001, and the figure had more than doubled by 2010.
For children aged six to 18, non-sexual abuse cases peaked consistently in May and October, coinciding with the two school exam periods, and dipped in July and August. Adding more weight to their findings, no seasonal pattern of abuse was found among kindergarten children, who do not take exams.
