Beyond Reactive Protection - a conversation with Emily Wong

[percussive music] So Emily, I'm so thrilled that you've spent this time with me.

You're an incredibly busy woman, and you're an inspirational woman.

You are the manager of the graduate school at Hang Seng University.

But you've also worked through an array of international organizations as well, non-governmental and governmental organizations.

Now, through this professional experience, what drew you at this point of your career to write this piece about child-safe policies and systems?

Yeah.

Thank you so much for this question.

What drew me, uh, to write this article actually is very my, very much my journey from frontline practice to policy thinking.

So before working in higher education, actually I spent over 15 years working frontline with children and community.

I began my, uh, career as a practitioner with World Vision China, uh, working closely with, uh, rural communities, families, uh, vulner- vulnerable children.

Okay, though during those year, I witnessed the risk faced by those, uh, left-behind children in mainland China.

So children, uh, affected by poverty, um, exposed to neglect, trafficking, exploitation.

Later, uh, when I returned to Hong Kong and worked with, um, local and international NGO, I continued to encounter children and young people facing, uh, crisis pregnancy, family breakdown, manipulation, and abuse.

So this is my background.

This is my, uh... um, all this experience shake me deeply because they show me that child protection is not an abstract idea, and it is actually about real child, okay, real families, and real consequences.

So, um, for those years, I, I was deeply involved in, um, designing and implementing those, um, child protection programs.

So I have saw so many, so many committed, uh, practitioners doing excellent work.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But over time, I always reflect, um, good programs alone are not enough.

Yeah, we need, we need a robust, sustainable policy so that to, so that to let the, um, the let the system, uh, work and all the children can be saved.

So that draw me to, uh, think about the idea of child safe system.

Yes.

So, um, that's the reason why if the system is weak...

Okay, programming is great, but if the wider system is weak, uh, policy are fragment or adults are unclear about their responsibilities, um, reporting channels are confusing.