of cash for payment of rent, clothing or medical treatment, or for financing a trade, so as to tide families over difficult periods. A leading organization in this field is the Hong Kong Family Welfare Society, the workers of which paid 22,700 visits to homes, held about 96,500 interviews and gave aid to 8,200 families. These would be impressive figures in any community. The Resettlement Loan and Savings Association, the Church of Christ in China, Lutheran World Service, Catholic Relief Services and other agencies between them render valuable assistance to thousands of families.
56. Another form of financial aid has been the sponsorship of school children by Foster Parents Plan, which helped to pay school fees for more than five thousand children during the year. The Church of Christ in China, Lutheran World Service and the Unitarian Services Committee of Canada continued their work in group sponsorship.
57. The number of babies abandoned by their families fell slightly to 138 during the past year; this compares with over 200 four years ago. Applications for adoption of children under the Adoption Ordinance of 1956 decreased slightly during the year. 122 Adoption Orders were made by the Courts, of which 27 were of abandoned children and the rest of children already members of the family under customary proce- dure, illegitimate, or moving by consent of the parents from one family to another. Details are given at Appendix 12. In addition, the number of applications for adoptions received from oversea continued to in- crease; two international agencies, International Social Service and Catholic Relief Services, acted as sponsors in these cases. During the year 180 children left for adoption abroad, as against 189 in the previous year. 125 of these had been abandoned children, and most of the remainder were children whose parents had decided that they should be adopted into other families (see Appendix 13).
58. Under the Protection of Women and Juveniles Ordinance of 1951 the registration of daughters adopted under Chinese customary procedure is compulsory, whereas the registration of adopted sons is voluntary. Under the same Ordinance the Director of Social Welfare is empowered to assume guardianship of children in need of care and protection. At the end of the year slightly fewer girls and boys were registered under the Ordinance than in the previous year (see Appendix 14).
59. Social awareness of the importance of family planning in Hong Kong has been spreading steadily as a result of the patient efforts of
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