CONFIDENTIAL
Reference
Policy consideration prior to signature of the Covenants
5. In reply to a Circular by the Commonwealth Secretary (dated 10 March 1967) which asked the Governors of dependent territories to inform him of any difficulties in applying the ICESCR and ICCPR in their territories, the Governor of Hong Hong on 22 June 1967 submitted a Statement on the Position of the Hong Kong Government on the two Covenants which included the following passages:
(a) With regard to Article 3 of the ICESCR:
"Discrimination Against Women
Traditionally, in Chinese life and custom, women do not have equal rights with men. This inequality is daily becoming less evident as urbanisation has gradually encompassed most of Hong Kong's population. Only in rural villages is there any tendency for inequality to obtrude. It could however be argued that certain old proclamations established Chinese customs and usages as having constitutional significance and, as such, subscribe to practices or customs which are discriminatory against women; these proclamations are:
(i) The Bremer/Elliott Proclamation dated 1.1.1841 to
the Chinese inhabitants of Hong Kong, preserving Chinese law and custom as it then existed.
(ii) Sir Henry Blake's Proclamation of 9.4.1899 and
his speech on the occasion of the hoisting of the flag when the New Territories were taken over.*
"When a woman marries according to Chinese custom she normally ceases to be a member of her own family, and her dowry and her personal property automatically becomes her husband's. Under strict custom she has no separate estate and is incapable of having any. In fact she has very few rights of any sort and her personal status is that of a person who is in charge of the domestic side of her husband's household. She has no rights of inheritance nor any right to divorce. In practice, however, many women married according to Chinese custom do hold property in their own right and their status in life is governed by the amount of influence on the family of western education and ideas. Again, according to Chinese law and custom, unmarried female members of a family have no rights to inheritance. If the propositions contained in the White Paper on Chinese Marriages, which was tabled in
No copy
* The Bremer/Elliot Proclamation is at Annex C. of the 1899 texts has been traced in the FCO, but the documents can be sought from the Public Record Office if required.
SOLAAF
CODE 18-77
CONFIDENTIAL