By South China Morning Post | Created at 2024-12-25 04:16:34 | Updated at 2024-12-25 15:50:58
11 hours ago
Two days before Christmas at Hong Kong’s maximum security Stanley Prison, inmate Hong* spent his morning playing with his nine-year-old daughter Lily*, but without a glass panel wedged between them.
Standing in front of a wall painted with cartoon animals frolicking in a forest, Hong and four other inmates melted into unbridled grins as their daughters sprinted to greet them with tight embraces.
“I’m very touched,” Hong, 44, told the Post. “I didn’t expect that in a frigid prison there would be such a heartwarming place. It’s like a refuge for me, an anchor for my spirit.”
The fathers were using a parent-child centre inside the prison compound, where male inmates can interact with their children below the age of 11 for two hours twice a month.
The Correctional Services Department established the centre at Stanley Prison last December, after Tong Fuk Correctional Institution and Hei Ling Chau Addiction Centre opened similar ones earlier last year.
