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HONG KONG
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GENERAL REPORT 376
THE SUPPRESSION OF PROSTITUTION (continued),
All down the street the open house fronts showed the ground floor cubicles in rowa running the depth of the building.
Recent experience has shown that concentration of exposure to infection on a certain group of individuals increased the incidence of Venereal Disease. Medical examination is useless from the public health point of view, and any slight advantage that there might be if concentration and examination did not mean a larger number of exposures to infection within the given group, become distinct disadvantages. Examination of prosti- tutes and their concentration in a given area resulta in a concentration of exposure to infection within that
area.
We understand that the brothel is as much an offence to Chiness as to Western ethical teaching, and that con- centrated promiscuity is a custom adopted from the West. When the public health danger of the present brothel is understood we are convinced that Chinese opinion will also support their removal.
The contention that clandestine prostitution in- cressed with the suppression of the recognised centree does not seem to be borne out by experience.
We therefore recommend that the existing laws be enforced, and that brothels should be abolished. We would especially recommend that those in the immediate vicinity of the Soldiers Homes, Seafarers' Institutione and the Seamen's Institute should be removed.
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REGISTRATION OF PROSTITUTION.
With the idea of controlling the kidnapping trade every girl who goes into a brothel is seen and registered by the Secretary for Chinese Affairs or one of his re- presentatives. The girl is asked if she wishes to adopt the life in order that they may be certain she is not being forced into it. The only way of judging the age of the girl is from the interview at the Government office. There is no social worker making enquiries as to the accuracy of any story told by the girl or her keeper.
Social workers of great experience informed us that in every case they knew the girls in the brothels of the Sampan Street and Kennedy Town districts were adopted children, sold to the keepers of the houses by the adopting parents.
It seems that the artificial value put on the Chinese girl by the system of recognised brothels is the main inducement to the kidnappers.
The promiscuous brothel is a Western not a Chinese custom. We are informed that they do not exist in the form we know in the interior of China.
The conditions in Hong Kong seem calculated to put the highest commercial value on the girl.