10. August 1929
THE CHINA MAIL,
CHILDREN SOLD
NEFARIOUS GANG IN
COLONY
COMMENDABLE POLICE WORK
After three months' work of a very difficult nature, the Police have suc- .ceeded in breaking up a gang of traffickers in children, and twenty per- sons, alleged to be members of the ring have been arrested.
It is understood that they will not be charged in Court, but will be de- ported by the Police. The arrests were made in different parts of the Colony, some of the places having been under suspicion for some time as the venue for negotiations. Half a dozen children were also taken charge of by the Police, and the Po Leung Kuk will try to trace their homes, with a view to returning them to their parents.
The majority of the children dealt in by the traffickers were bought, like cattle, by agents in Chinese territory and shipped to Hong Kong and men and women her, the "brains of the gang," do a lucrative business selling the unfortunate little "slaves."
A Constant Supply
The middlemen in the country have no difficulty in securing a constant sup- ply of children for a mere song because of the alluring stories they tell to the little one's ignorant and poor parents of the happiness which awaited the children in homes of wealthy Chinese residents in Hong Kong. The parents invariably part with their children for the sake of the little ready cash offered them, and regard the heartless middle- men as their benefactors!
The prices which the traffickers ob- tain here for their human cargo is un- derstood to be about $250 for a small boy from a person wanting to adopt a son, and about $80 for a female child of good appearance.
In the majority of cases the boys' lot is a happier one than that of the girls, they really become the adopted children of the households into which they are sold; but the poor girls with few ex- ¿ceptions, are sold as mui tsais.
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EXID