ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION-OF..
HUMAN RIGHTS
HKK210/2
REPORT FOR 1979 TO THE UN WORKING GROUP OF EXPERTS ON SLAVERY
CHILD LABOUR IN HONG KONG
DISK GUWAN *NDIX
T12012 23
Hong Kong is a territory of approximately 400 sq. miles located on the southern tip of China's Guangdong (Kwangtung)
province. It contains about 4 million people, 98% of whom
are Chinese. It is administered by Britain as a colony with
a British Governer appointed by Royal Instructions and Letters
Patent, a civil service and police whose top ranks are largely expatriates, a wholly appointed Legislature whose unofficial
(i.e. non-civil servant) membership is overwhemingly drawn
from representatives of big business, being top bankers,
industrialists etc. Overall reponsibility for Hong Kong lies
with the British Parliament and the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office. The Treaties under which Britain acquired the
territory between 1842 and 1898 are disputed by the government
of the Peoples Republic of China at whose request Hong Kong
was removed from the purview of the UN Decolonisation Committee
in 1972. China's position is that Hong Kong is Chinese territory
and that she reserves the right to act unilaterally "when the time is ripe" (1). In the meantime, China has placed little
restriction on the British authorities and indeed provides Hong
Kong with much of their essential supplies such as water and
fresh food.
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Prior to 1949 and the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China, Hong Kong's economy was largely based around the entrepot trade with China. In the early 1950's came the beginnings
of large-scale industrialisation starting with textiles whose
introduction to the Colony was in the hands of industrialists
from Shanghai where the industry had been established for decades.
The use of child labour in China before 1949 was widespread and
unremarkable and it is fair to suggest that many of the employers opening up for business in Hong Kong carried with them a benign
attitude to the practice.