Hongkonger Hugo Leung* was 16 and in secondary school when police officers came to his home and arrested him for having sex with an underage girl.
The pair had met on social media and chatted online for a month before they met for the first time and ended up having sex at her home.
The girl’s parents found out from her phone and called police. Leung was convicted and sentenced to 160 hours of community service.
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Now 18, he told the Post their sexual encounter happened on impulse and he believed it was consensual, as they had been exchanging sexually suggestive posts via Instagram.
“I was curious to know how it felt, especially since my friends often talked about their experiences,” he said, adding that the rest of his knowledge about sex came mainly from pornography.
Leung said he did not know the girl’s age and felt worried and anxious when he was arrested. “I was not sure what would happen to me,” he said.
No longer in touch with the girl after being banned from having contact with her, he said: “I should have been less impulsive and thought carefully before doing it.”
Hong Kong recorded a rise in juvenile sex crimes in the post-Covid era, with the arrests of those aged 20 or below surging to a 10-year high in 2023.
Almost all 396 youngsters arrested were male, with more than half aged 10 to 15. The total marked a 71 per cent rise from 231 cases in 2018.
More than two-fifths – 169 – were arrested for indecent assault, which includes touching another person’s genitals without consent.
Another 86 were arrested for unlawful sexual intercourse, which means having sex with a girl under 16, and 11 for rape.
The biggest jump in arrests was for “other offences against public morality”, which went from 36 cases in 2020 to 122 last year, and included offences of voyeurism, outraging public decency and possession and publication of child pornography.
Frontline social workers and academics told the Post that prolonged periods of social isolation during the pandemic blurred teenagers’ sense of boundaries in social relationships.
It did not help that there was little discussion on relationships, sex and the law at home and in school, while children could easily access pornography online.
Similar post-pandemic rises in youngsters arrested for sex crimes have also been reported elsewhere.
British police said in January there were about 107,000 reported cases of child sexual abuse and exploitation in 2022, a 7.6 per cent rise from the year before. In more than half of the cases, the alleged perpetrator was another child aged between 10 and 17.
Singapore reported more than 470 teenagers aged 19 and below were arrested last year for sexual offences, a 30 per cent rise from 2022.
Authorities in both countries attributed the rising numbers to children’s increased exposure to pornography online.
Social worker Lam Ho-yin, who is with the Evangelical Lutheran Church Social Service of Hong Kong which counsels young people who have been arrested, pointed to the disruptions to school life during the pandemic.
He said this affected not only the students’ academic work, but also their understanding of relationships, boundaries, sex and unacceptable behaviour.
“They had little opportunity to interact and receive formal sex education during the pandemic, and some struggled to navigate normal social boundaries, especially with the opposite sex, after returning to campus,” he said.
Some crossed boundaries without realising it was illegal, he said, or assumed they were just having fun by touching others, not harming them.
When it came to sex, teenagers often acted on impulse and out of curiosity, but he said their behaviour also revealed insufficient understanding of pertinent laws.
For example, some boys believed wrongly that it was all right to have sex with an underage girl if she consented.
Lam said teenagers had to be made aware of the law and the meaning of consent, and this could be done during sex education classes.
They ought to also discuss and explore the moral values behind the laws, but such opportunities were rare during the pandemic.
‘Courts gentler on young offenders’
Hong Kong laws are clear on the penalties for sex-related offences.
Unlawful sexual intercourse with a girl under 16 can result in up to five years’ jail, indecent assault has a maximum penalty of 10 years’ jail, and the punishment for rape is between five years’ and life imprisonment.
In 2021, following an increase in new crimes involving the use of micro cameras, smartphones and the internet, four activities were outlawed: voyeurism; taking “up-skirt” and “down-blouse” photographs; the publication of those images; and revenge porn. Those convicted face up to five years in prison.
The punishments tend to be harsher for adults who prey on young people and the law is usually applied more lightly when the perpetrators are young themselves.
Veteran criminal lawyer Stephen Hung Wan-shun said teenagers arrested for sex offences often did not end up facing trial, as the courts preferred to let them avoid having a criminal record provided they stayed clear of breaking the law for one to two years.
When it came to unlawful sex, the age difference between the offender and the underage partner would be taken into account, with a younger offender usually receiving a lighter sentence, he said.
However, he cautioned that even young people charged with voyeurism were likely to be taken to court as authorities had seen fit to create a separate offence for this, rather than leave it under the broad category of disorder in a public place.
Peter Chan*, 15, was convicted of voyeurism and placed under police caution for voyeurism late last year.
He took a photograph of his scantily clad girlfriend without her consent and after they broke up, shared it with a friend.
He used the “disappearing photo” function on Instagram, which meant the image could be viewed only once on the app, but it still ended up leaked and circulated among his classmates.
His ex-girlfriend only found out when an anonymous internet user threatened to publish the photo. Her parents reported the matter to police.
Chan said: “I didn’t know how many people saw it. If I’d kept it to myself and did not share it, it would not have been a big problem.”
He said he did not ask the girl for consent before photographing her because he assumed she would have let him.
He said that having admitted his mistake, he would be more careful with photos in future relationships.
‘Nudity has been normalised’
Zeno Lam Chun-wah, from the youth crime prevention centre of the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups, said there had been insufficient discussion and education on the issue of taking photos without consent and sharing them.
With such photos circulating widely online, he asked: “Are young people even aware that this behaviour is not respectful and can violate the rights of others?”
Despite the new laws, many still had no understanding of child pornography, he said. Some underage girls even shared photos showing themselves scantily dressed, as a way of showing affection to boys they were seeing.
“For some boys, sharing sexy pictures that they took [of their girlfriends] was a way to flaunt their status and gain the respect of their peers,” Lam said. “It’s also part of their culture to share their dating experiences or partners’ photos online.”
Lam also pointed out that for some young people, sex and intimate relationships fulfilled the need for close connections missing at home or in school.
“Many Hong Kong parents are both working and rarely spend quality time with their children, who are struggling to cope with academic stress and rapid life changes brought by the pandemic,” he said.
“So some children seek intimacy and attachments to counter the stress ... and they prefer going online, including to dating apps, to find strangers, instead of talking to friends and family in real life.”
Polytechnic University criminologist Eric Chui Wing-hong said it was likely to be the case that teenagers photographing and sharing explicit pictures made up most of the increase in public morality offences last year.
He said nudity had been “normalised” on the internet, including on websites with pop-up advertisements and explicit online games.
“That’s why when someone sends a nude photo, they might consider it a normal exchange,” he said. “Some might even believe it’s a victimless crime, as they’re only looking at photos, it’s nothing physical.”
But Chui said harm was already done to a victim when an intimate photo was taken without consent, before it was circulated among peers.
Teenagers needed to learn from case studies to understand how such acts hurt victims directly and indirectly, he added.
Raymond Tam Kin-yuen, senior lecturer in applied social sciences at Polytechnic University, said teenage boys inevitably faced pressure to conform to dominant ideals of masculinity in their social groups.
These included being in heterosexual relationships and displaying leadership abilities and sporting prowess.
Individuals without such qualities may struggle to prove they belong, and to avoid bullying, may feel compelled to demonstrate the masculine traits valued by their group.
These could range from talking about women’s bodies or about sex, to acting like a predator in relationships, Tam said.
Social workers and academics the Post spoke to stressed the importance of sex education to allow teenagers to discuss intimacy and sexual relationships and understand the law, to reduce reckless behaviour.
Avoid sex, play badminton instead?
Professor Diana Kwok Kan, a sex therapist and scholar specialising in gender studies at Education University, said authorities’ promotion of abstinence as sex education was “insufficient and ineffective”.
She said sex education in Hong Kong was school-based, not standardised with a central curriculum.
While the Education Bureau provided learning materials and guidelines, schools were free to conduct classes themselves or invite specialised non-governmental organisations to run workshops or talks.
Responding to a Legislative Council query in March, education minister Christine Choi Yuk-lin said sex education would not be delivered as an independent subject as it overlapped with other areas, such as values education.
She said elements of sex education were embedded in teaching materials across primary and secondary schools.
In late August, the Education Bureau sparked controversy with new teaching materials for the citizenship, economics and society curriculum for secondary students in Form One to Three.
Among other things, teenagers were advised to set limits on intimacy early in a relationship and pledge to control their sexual impulses, including resisting pornography.
They were also told to reject premarital sex and consider playing badminton instead.
The bureau said this approach aimed to protect students and instil the right values, including respecting boundaries and making responsible decisions.
Experts and lawmakers widely slammed the suggestions on how young people could restrain their sexual impulses, calling them out of touch and unrealistic.
Some said the teaching materials also reinforced victim-blaming by advising students to “avoid visual stimulation from sexy clothing”.
Kwok said overseas research had shown that adolescents who received abstinence as the message were more likely to engage in unprotected sex, with the risks of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, compared with those who had comprehensive sex education.
“Secondary school students do not only need to learn the right values, but also that it’s perfectly normal and acceptable to have sexual urges, and where those urges come from,” she said.
As a therapist, she added, she saw clients struggling with feelings of shame, guilt and anxiety when entering an intimate relationship after years of being told to abstain from sex.
Kwok said a key purpose of sex education should be to teach students to protect and respect both themselves and others, instead of merely telling them to suppress urges and threatening them with consequences of breaking the law.
“Comprehensive sex education can enable one to better respect others’ bodies, prevent the spread of disease and make informed decisions that can protect themselves and others,” she said.
More from South China Morning Post:
- Hong Kong sex education materials not official policy, aim to instil good values: minister
- Hong Kong leader John Lee defends controversial sex education advice for schoolchildren
- Sex education experts take aim at Hong Kong authorities over ‘unprofessional’ teaching materials
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