A child welfare organisation has called on lawmakers to speed up passing a bill to make it mandatory to report suspected child abuse cases, after receiving an increase in such reports in the past year.

Against Child Abuse said it's received 187 reports of suspected abuse via its hotline between April last year and March this year – an increase of 11 percent from the previous one-year period.

The group said more than half of the suspected cases involved physical abuse, while the rest had to do with emotional abuse, sexual assault and child neglect.

The group’s director, Donna Wong, said the Legislative Council should approve a bill on the mandatory reporting of serious child abuse as soon as possible to better protect children.

She also urged organisations, such as schools or childcare centres, to work out their own anti-child abuse policies according to the government’s proposed legislation.

“We hope that the organisations helping children can develop their own internal child protection policies …the boundaries of behaviour, and set up the procedures to handle complaints or suspected child abuse,” Wong said.

Under the proposed legislation, “mandated reporters” – including doctors, nurses, social workers and teachers – must file a report as soon as practicable if they have reasonable grounds to suspect that a child "has been suffering serious harm" or "is at real risk of suffering serious harm".

They can be subject to a three-month jail term and a HK$50,000 fine if they fail to report those cases.