Known to the public for her work against domestic violence and her care for its victims, Sister Juliana Devoy, Director of the Good Shepherd Center, passed away yesterday morning at the age of 83 after suffering a stroke last week.
Described by social work academic Cecilia Ho as an on-the-ground social worker, Sister Devoy dedicated her entire career to combating domestic violence and protecting victims from repeated harm.
She was a pillar in the cross-sector group working to fully criminalize domestic violence back in 2012. At the time, the government wanted to make the offence a semi-public crime, meaning that only the victim would be legally able to initiate a domestic violence lawsuit, in contrast to the current legal classification, which allows the authorities to do so.
Often, members of the clergy are perceived to be detached from the world, but Sister Devoy could not be considered so, as least not to Ho, who was part of the aforementioned cross-sector group.
Talking to Chinese media, All About Macau, the academic recalled that Sister Devoy had completely changed her impression of the clergy. “Sister Devoy has lived out justice and human rights,” Ho said.
The Catholic nun was born in America in 1937. After graduating from high school in 1954, she entered the Sisters of the Good Shepherd in Los Angeles, studying social work and sociology in college.
In 1963, she arrived in Hong Kong, where she began helping young girls with their life. This also marked the commencement of her half-a-century-long charity career in Macau and Hong Kong. AL
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