Prof. Edward Chan, a Fulbright Scholar from the Department of Applied Social Sciences (APSS), spoke about his longstanding commitment to social work and the stand he has taken against family violence in both Hong Kong and mainland China.
What attracted you to PolyU?
When I was a student here 22 years ago, I found that my mentors were excellent social work scholars who greatly inspired me in my academic pursuits. Re-joining PolyU recently, I discover that APSS has been upholding a strong and unique philosophy of developing critical social work visions, and PolyU provides great momentum for pursuing academic achievement. As a member of the PolyU family, I have many opportunities to collaborate with colleagues from different fields.
Why did you choose social work as a field of research?
Social work saves lives through helping deprived, vulnerable and at-risk individuals, families and communities, and promotes quality of life with meaningful life achievements. As social workers, we are social architects making a better world in which individuals and families can freely pursue their own life meaning. I am proud of my commitment to this profession and will continue to work to the best of my ability to help people self-actualise.
What led you to your interest in preventing family violence?
I started my practice supporting female and child victims of family violence, and helping men who perpetrated violence against their family members. These experiences helped me understand how difficult it can be to maintain peaceful and equal relationships in a culture that emphasises hierarchy. We still have a lot to work on to change unfavourable cultural beliefs and practices, social policies, education, health practices and social service systems.
How prevalent is family violence in Hong Kong and what are the main contributing factors?
In Hong Kong’s first population study of child and spousal abuse, which I conducted, more than 10% of Hong Kong families interviewed reported having experienced severe physical child or spousal abuse. When counting all kinds of violence such as psychological abuse, sexual violence and so on, the rate of the families affected could be as high as 70%. The main contributing factors are perpetrators’ lack of knowledge about the legal and interpersonal consequences, inadequate protection and support for victims to empower them to stop the problem and insufficient education about employing non-violent means of conflict resolution. Fortunately, we have started to gain a good understanding of these factors and have moved towards developing appropriate intervention programmes.
You also study poly-victimisation as part of internal migration in mainland China. What are the major issues involved?
Internal migration is affecting hundreds of millions of Chinese families and children by increasing their risks of victimisation and poly-victimisation, the cooccurrence of various types of violence within a family, ranging from spousal and child abuse to in-law violence. My focus on poly-victimisation is a new approach to studying family violence, shifting away from the traditional focus on individual forms of violence.
Children are the future of the country. If they can benefit from social changes brought about by combating poly-victimisation, they will be the future force of building a healthy country. On the contrary, if they have experienced adverse childhood experiences, the negative effect of traumatisation on them will be very likely to be transmitted to their next generations. ♦
