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sell female children to traffickers from whom they pass into the hands of women who train the children with the object of their becoming prostitutes. Mui-tsai are by training not suited for use prostitutes. The sale of a girl to be a mui-tsai has indeed the effect of protecting her from prostitution as her master and mistress retain her services for domestic purposes and would guard her from the risks of ill-disposed persons. Mui-tsai are more closely attached to the family than are hired servants, and they cannot so easily be decoyed away without enquiries being set on foot. As a rule, children acquired for training as prostitutes are not employed as domestic servants. They are generally taught to sing and to play Mah Jong and to act as entertainers at restaurants; and in China large numbers of these girls, who are know as "guitar girls," may be seen frequenting restaurants, where they are called to amuse customers at dinner. should be clearly understood that the mui-tsai is only one variety of purchase child; and it is of course, very necessary, if the practice of sale and purchase of children is to be suppressed, that the activities of all professional traffickers should be curtailed in every possible
way.
This is the aim of the Hong Kong Government acting through the department of the Secretary for Chinese Affairs and by means of the Police. But in practice it has proved very difficult to deal effectively with these traffickers, deportation being as a rule the only remedy. As regards further safeguards in this respect, unless the buying and selling of girls is stopped in China, nothing can be done in Hong Kong which will have much effect. The only effectual safeguard is to enlist the co-operation of the Chinese community to put down these practices by exposing any cases which may come to light.
10. Another preliminary point that I may here deal with is the allegation, to which you draw my attention, in a leading article in the South China Morning Post of the 6th February, 1929, that the Secretary for Chinese Affairs assists in the recovery of the purchase price in the case of mui-tsai, who have run away. You also ask for my observations on other allegations in the same article. In reply I may say that it has for some time been the settled policy of the Hong Kong Government not to assist any person in any way to recover money paid for the purpose of acquiring a mui-tsai. Cases have occurred in the past in which individual officers, including magistrates, have adopted a different practice in order to punish deliberate fraud. The Chinese committee of the Po Leung Kuk, under the influence of Chinese custom, and actuated also by a desire to secure fair treatment, has frequently arranged for the repayment of money paid to secure the services of a mui-tsai; but in such cases the child was not left in the custody of her employer, but kept in the Po Leung Kuk until the vendor had returned the money claimed under false pretences. I consider, however, that such procedure cannot be justified, even though it is natural that an official should feel reluctant to allow himself to be made an instrument to assist in the perpetration of a fraud, and I have given definite orders to the executive officers of the Government and to the Directors of the Po Leung Kuk that the practice must be entirely abandoned.
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11. As regards the other points in the article of the South China Morning Post to which you refer, I may observe that the article ignores the difficulties of enforcing registration. It also makes the common mistake of assuming the results of registration. For example, it implies that registration would somehow give the government infor- mation as to cases of cruelty. It is, moreover, grossly misleading to say, as did the South China Morning Post, that if a mui-tsai runs away, anyone who shelters her is liable to be arrested and charged with harbouring.' The reference is presumably to Section 18 (1) (b) of Ordinance No. 4 of 1897. Every prosecution under this section requires the consent of the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, and his consent would, of course, not be given without adequate reason. Anyone who kidnaps a mui-tsai in order to sell her, perhaps for prostitution, is liable to be arrested and charged, and rightly so; but not a person who harbours a runaway mui-tsai from motives of benevolence. Anyone who sold a mui-tsai to a brothel would be prosecuted under the Protection of Women and Girls Ordinance of 1897, if there were any evidence at all. Again, assuming the guess of the Anti-Mui-tsai Society as to the number of mui-tsai in Hong
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