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"Mr. Amery has but to give the necessary orders
Mui Tsai.
"
22
MARCH 30, 1929
LITTLE YELLOW
SLAVES Under the
NDER the British flag in Hong Kong virtual slavery and worse still exists. It is cloaked under the guise of child adoption and is known as the system of
The most frequent victims of the system are girls. Their ages range be- tween four and thirteen. At the best their fate is to be a domestic drudge, at the worst to be sold for prostitution.
The Government cannot claim to be ignorant of its existence. In 1923 Mr. Winston Churchill, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, said in the House of Commons:
"Both the Governor (of Hong Kong) and I are determined to effect the abolition of the system at the earliest practicable, date, and I have indicated to the Governor that I expect the change to be carried out within the year.
This pledge has not been kept.
In 1923 there were some 8,500 Mui Tsai. now there are over 10,000. The number who are used for domestic pur- poses is decreasing: the number sold for prostitution is increasing.
The real distinction between the two is very slight; it is a matter of price. The girls are assessed like cattle, by age. For every year of her life £1 or 30s. is paid. Thus, for a girl of four years old, between £4 and £6 is the market price: for a girl of ten, between £10 and £15, and so on.
The price of bread
The transaction is arranged by a middleman. He draws his supplies from Canton, where, owing to the dis- turbed state of affairs consequent upon years of civil war. parents are ready to part with their children rather than starve.
Between the buyer and the seller a definite contract note passes, as though the girl were a bale of merchandise.
It is called, in order to be in keeping with the idea of Mui Tsal as adoption, a "deed of presentation," but in effect it is a deed of sale.
After delivery the purchaser is at liberty to alter the name of the girl till she is of age. when he is at liberty either to marry her into a family or to keep her as a concubine.
In some cases it is agreed that no questions shall be asked as to her whereabouts or as to her death.
This is just as well, for in a typical case that came before the courts the child was brought in covered with burns. She had been branded all over with hot irons.
A child's screams
It is said, in extenuation of this sort of conduct, that in China there is in- difference to human suffering. But Hong Kong is British territory and the standard must be British.
naval
Commander Haslewood, a British officer, had his attention attracted by a child's screams in a house in the Chinese quarter. The cries were those of a Mui Tsal being maltreated.
He went to the police and reported the matter. but all efforts to get them to take up the matter proved useless, so hardened have they become to this cruel system.
No wages are paid to the girl be- tween four and eighteen. Under some contracts the parents can, if they b-- come rich enough, redeem their child, but such cases are rare in the ex- treme.
UNION
JACK
Hong Kong is British terri- tory—yet 10,000 children live there as slaves, or worse
It is not at all unusual for the girls to be resold. There are many reasons for this. In the first place, the older they are the greater the price they can command, and therefore form à business investment.
Or supposing that, although her owner uses her for household work, she is ravished by another member of the household, she becomes unmarriage- able.
The best plan is to buy another, but recoup oneself by selling her to a dis- orderly house, where prices always run higher.
Concubinage is customary in South China. The concubines collect
$5
many of these girls as possible. for should their master die, they will be left penniless if they have not Mui
Tsai to sell.
High prices
The buyers, since a high price is de- manded, are inevitably the keepers of disorderly houses. The end of the child slave in more cases than not,
is as an inhabitant of one of these
houses.
In fairness, however, it must be stated that there are cases on record where a Mui Tsai has been well treated and looked after.
The Mui Tsai system is closely con- nected with the white slave traffic. Great Britain is an adherent of the League of Nations White Slave Convention, and therefore the law of Britain lays it down that no girl can be detained in a disorderly house against her will or on the ground that she owes money.
Owing to the Chinese reverence for their ancestors and parents, a Chinese girl believes that if money has been received for her it is her duty to pay off the debt. There- fore, although she may be told that she is free, she conceives it to be her duty to stay.
This makes it very difficult to put the law into effect, and children of twelve to fourteen years of age are often to be found in such places.
The traffickers in the Far East are mostly women. In the. West they are mostly men. These women ship girls
Pretty Chinese girls like these fetch good prices as Mui Tsai
overseas from Hong Kong. They go from ship to ship with cargoes of girls. Needless to say, the conditions
under which they travel are fearful. Every penny spent on them is grudged, and they travel herded like cattle in the holds.
The places to which the Mui Tsai are shipped are French Cochin China. the Malay States, British North Borneo, and also to America. In all these there is a large Chinese population.
In San Francisco, not so long since, an American citi- zen negotiated direct with a The woman in Hong Kong.
On price was fixed at £5. landing in California she was forced into a life of prostitu- tion through fear of imminent death.
The Mui Tsai's treatment in the United States is similar in every par- ticular to their life in China. Tity are bought and sold like chattels and are delivered up to a life of prostitu- tion.
The traffickers are all members of the secret societies called "Tongs,' and the girls are smuggled in from Hong Kong as wives, sisters daughters of these men who are naturalised American citizens,
Merely farc'cal
or
The Chinese sell them later on to whites, or to cabaret and night-club owners, so that they are found even so far East as New York.
The traffic in Mui Tsai from Hong Kong to British North Borneo is par- ticularly scandalous. There is less difficulty for the traffickers to bring their victims from one part of British territory to another than from Chinese to British.
There is nominally a form of regis- tration for prostitutes, designed to pre- vent girls of tender years or unwilling girls being kept in disorderly houses.
This is a mere farce.
The demand is always for young girls, and as there is no need to pro- duce a birth certificate, the enquiry as to age is formal and perfunctory in the extreme!
In theory a Mui Tsal's servitude ceases on her attaining womanhood at eighteen.
But what chance has a girl of abandoning the life?
No more "adoptions'
In Hong Kong dissatisfaction with the system is growing. Public opinion, both Chinese and British, is ready for the change.
Mr. Amery has but to give the necessary orders.
The first move is to prevent any more "adoptions" taking place; the next is to set up employment bureaux for the children.
Finally, a general order can made cancelling any documents trans- ferring the possession of a human being from one person to another.
The reform would be complete, and the cost infinitesimal. At all events, this dreadful stain on British adminis- tration must be wiped out.