May, 2004

A Tragic Lesson of Battering

Rose Wu

The distressing news of the death of a 31-year-old new immigrant mother, Kam Shuk-ying, and her six-year-old twin daughters who were found chopped to death in their Tin Shui Wai public housing flat has raised serious concerns about domestic violence and the hidden discrimination in Hong Kong society toward the poor, especially mainland immigrant families. The death of Kam clearly illustrates that domestic violence not only includes the traditional issue of male power and control over women and children but also exposes prejudice in Hong Kong's legal and social systems towards new immigrant mothers.

Let us first look at Tin Shui Wai where Kam's family lived, a new residential town in the Yuen Long District with many families receiving unemployment benefits. Yuen Kwun-ying, a community education officer at Harmony House, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) providing counselling and shelter for battered spouses, warns that low-income families on welfare are more vulnerable to domestic violence because conflicts easily arise as a result of financial hardship. Yuen also points out that the remote location of Tin Shui Wai and the resultant higher travel costs discourage couples from seeking support from their friends and other family members living outside the area, even when violence erupts within the home. Meanwhile, social facilities in the area are not enough to help these families, for there are only 30 social workers from three family service centres serving the 270,000 people in the area.

It is also important to examine the contribution of government policies to the discrimination and marginalisation of new immigrant families that this tragedy reveals. Kam, a Sichuan native on the mainland, married her husband Li Pak-sum in 1999. The two children to whom she gave birth were allowed to settle in Hong Kong but not Kam. Her husband became fully dependant on welfare because his wife was not allowed to come to Hong Kong at the same time. Such a policy of splitting a mother and her children has long been blamed for aggravating the social problems spawned by cross-border marriages. After Kam was finally allowed to settle in Hong Kong in January 2004, in addition to being totally isolated from any social network, she was jobless and faced the added burden of being ineligible for welfare as a result of the change announced last year in the government's population policy that came into effect in January this year. This recently introduced policy prevents new arrivals from the mainland from claiming welfare payments until they have lived in Hong Kong for seven years while previously they could claim welfare benefits after 12 months. As the Hong Kong Christian Institute (HKCI) and many women's organisations have noted, it is a shortsighted and discriminating measure which places a terrible burden on their families and helps to foster an environment in which serious social problems are bound to arise.

According to figures reported by the South China Morning Post on April 15, the number of local domestic violence cases rose by 264 to 3,298 incidents last year with the largest number of cases in Tuen Mun and Yuen Long. Unfortunately, the government, instead of improving the quantity and quality of social services in reaction to this upward trend in domestic violence, cut millions of dollars from the welfare budget in an effort to tackle the government's budget deficit. Among support centres facing the threat of closure are those helping new migrants and single-parent families. Moreover, Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) payments were cut by 11 percent in June 2003 to bring them in line with deflation.

These needless deaths have also raised questions about how the police and social workers handle domestic violence. Liu Ngan-fung, chairwoman of the Hong Kong Association for the Survivors of Women Abuse, questions why the tragedy occurred after Kam repeatedly sought help from the police and social workers. The police initially claimed that they had not been contacted by Kam on the day she was killed but later admitted that she had, indeed, visited the Tin Shui Wai police station on that fateful day. On the day of the murders, Kam had told friends whom she had met at the government shelter that officers were waiting at her home to help her get her daughters back from her husband. Kam had returned home because her husband had said she might not see the children again if she did not get them. Her friends also said Kam had told social workers in the shelter that her husband kept a knife under the bed.

A poll released by the Chinese University of Hong Kong on April 19 may explain why police officers and social workers failed to rescue Kam and her two daughters, for the poll found that nearly 30 percent of the police questioned said that husbands were entitled to hit their wives if necessary. It also found that 25.4 percent of police agreed that husbands should be allowed to have sex with their wives whenever they wanted. It concluded that police had the least understanding of domestic abuse among frontline workers who deal with victims of domestic violence.

Catherine Tang So-kum, the psychology professor who conducted the survey, said there was a serious lack of understanding of domestic violence among the police and an inability to detect the severity of a case. She also stressed that ignorance of the problem in the social service professions was also worrying as there were only 25 percent to 38 percent of doctors, teachers, lawyers and social workers questioned in the poll who believed wife abuse had a serious impact on society. Yu Sau-chu, chief executive of the Hong Kong Single Parents Association, notes that in many cases victims feel worse because social workers or police do not trust them.

Meanwhile, in the pastoral context of Hong Kong's churches, domestic violence is seldom a subject to be discussed. One major obstacle is the Church's adoption of a gender perspective that reinforces the view that women's proper place is in the home, that they are to maintain the well-being of the family, that they are to be supported by and subordinated to their husbands. This ethos and regime of the traditional family is maintained not only by the power and control of male heads of the household but is also sustained by religious institutions through their teachings and pastoral practices. Many pastors even think that battering is not occurring in their congregations. However, Kam's case and others show that the family is not always a safe environment for women and children.

Although we did not kill Kam and her daughters, our society's systematic and cultural discrimination towards the poor, new immigrant mothers and the attitudes of family, friends, counsellors, police, social workers and pastors all have a critical impact on the societal reinforcement of domestic violence. Kam and her daughters paid a high price to awaken our community to repent and seek radical changes in ourselves before we wait for another domestic violence victim to cry for justice and mercy.