CHAPTER IV
INFANT WELFARE
17. The rapid industrialization of Hong Kong and the keen com- petition in the business of making a living both have their effects on the care of infants. The demand for female labour in factories is influencing many Chinese women to give up their traditional role of housewives, confined almost entirely to the home, and to go out to work in order to supplement the family income. As a result, large numbers of young children are left uncared for in tenements and in the streets during the day time and there is a great need for nurseries to look after these children.
18. During the year the Y.W.C.A. were building a new Centre at Yau Yat Chuen to be called the Maurine Grantham Centre; this will provide a residential nursery for 120 children between the ages of two and five, as well as a hostel for working girls. The St. James Settlement in the congested district of Wan Chai has opened a day nursery for thirty young children whose parents are at work or suffer from tuberculosis.
19. The increasing number of abandoned babies is an indication of the difficulty which some families are having in making a living. A number of these babies have physical or mental defects and are presumably abandoned by their parents as being ill-equipped to supple- ment the family income or to stand on their own feet later on. The next chapter deals further with this, and with adoption. A list of babies' homes and nurseries is given at Appendix 5.
20. An important contribution to the welfare of infants not cared for in babies' homes continued to be made by the Hong Kong Society for Protection of Children, which now operates five centres. The numerous tasks undertaken by the Society's staff and voluntary helpers at these centres include giving baths, medical attention and nutritious food to babies and nursing mothers, and the instruction of mothers in baby-craft. The Society now has two creches where babies suffering from malnutrition can be nursed back to health.
21. Unlike the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in the United Kingdom, the Hong Kong Society does not conduct prosecutions for cruelty to children; its work lies more in the promotion of infant health. Cases of ill-treatment discovered are
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