Committee chairman Chow Chun-bong announced the independent study, called “Shaping the Future”, on 17 December. GIFT’s managing director, Thomas Tang, summarised the findings for journalists at a briefing at which a range of stakeholders attended, including many child members of a newly formed children’s council, Kids’ Dreams.

GIFT found that Hong Kong lacked a co-ordinated policy on children’s needs and rights and that stakeholders – including children themselves – believed strongly that an independent and separate children’s commission would help fill this need and allocate resources and public funds more holistically.

The report reflected concerns that children needed guidance sooner rather than later, and this would help their development. It would also maximise education, health care and social welfare spending, reducing the need for remedial efforts.

The stakeholders say they believe the children’s body should be distinct from a family commission that the government is promoting to tackle pressures in society. Dr Chow said, “If there is only a family commission, it will be insufficient to protect children’s interests, and we risk submerging the voice of the child with other louder voices and interests of the more senior members of the family.”

Hong Kong’s society was under constant and new stresses, and children were affected by these in significant ways, Dr Tang said. Not least of these were strains caused by a changing population profile and growing wealth gap, he said.

GIFT’s research further covered countries where different models of independent children’s commissions consistently reflected the need for legal reform and support national child-related policies. The commissions were bringing better understanding of children’s needs and helping to develop research tools specifically for assessing the impacts of child-related policies.

Hong Kong lawmaker Fernando Cheung Chiu-hung and civil society advocate Albert Lai Kwong-tak, who attended the report launch, offered opinions on the need to recognise children’s needs and rights.

Mr Lai, chairman of non-governmental organisation Hong Kong People’s Council for Sustainable Development, said, “The government has embraced the concept of sustainable development as its overriding policy objective. A central theme in the practice of sustainable development is its emphasis on inter-generational equity. It provides a solid basis for our focus on children’s rights as they represent the continuation into our future generations.”

Dr Cheung, who represents the social welfare industry in Hong Kong’s Legislative Council, plans to introduce a motion in 2007 urging the government to establish a children’s commission. “Parents are sometimes not aware that their actions are an infringement of children’s rights, or sometimes parents just would not admit that children have their own rights,” Dr Cheung said. “Children need to have their own forum to let them sound out their needs and it is an appropriate time to bring up a motion at the Legislative Council urging the government to set up a children’s commission. Hopefully, through the motion, the government would consider this matter seriously.”

The Hong Kong Committee on Children’s Rights works to promote, advance and ensure the rights of the child in Hong Kong. Among its chief objectives are to “develop and continuously update an agenda for the rights of the child in Hong Kong, including the adoption of a child policy, a comprehensive Child Ordinance and the establishment of an independent Child Commission”.

It also monitors the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and communicates and co-operates with local and international organisations on children’s rights.