C 2
Thirteen (13) names were added to the list of girls under bond to report themselves regularly to the Registrar General, a precaution taken to prevent their being forced into prostitution. Thirteen girls were struck off the list, and three married. The total on the list at the end of the year was 44.
The number of persons reported to the Po Leung Kuk as missing during the year was 244, of whom only 39 were found. The corresponding figures for 1910 were 221 and 48. The number of boys reported missing was 71 against 90 in 1910. The total number of persons reported missing, including reports from China and Macao, was 416, of whom 59 were found. The corresponding figures for 1910 were 395 and 75 (for 1909, 390 and 50).
The timidity and docility of Chinese girls make them still as easy a prey as ever to procuresses and render it very difficult to obtain convictions against such women. Several cases of alleged forcing into prostitution were investigated during the year, but the only action that it has been found possible to take has been to send suspicious cases to the Po Leung Kuk: in no case was it found possible to collect the evidence necessary to secure a conviction in the Courts.
EMIGRATION.
Emigration Ordinance No. 1 of 1889. (i.)—Emigration of Women and Children. (Table IV.)
The number of women and children passengers examined and allowed to proceed was 24,630 as compared with 16,806 in 1910. There is an increase of 7,364 in passengers going to the Straits Settlements; a decrease of 52 in those going to the American Continent, and an increase of 303 in those going to the Dutch Indies.
The rate at which the passengers were examined was about 113 per hour.
71 or 20 per cent. of the passengers were detained for enquiries, as against 103 or 61 per cent in 1910. Seven cases were still under consideration at the end of the year, and of the remaining 64, 33 (or 51 per cent.) were ultimately allowed to leave without any order being made. A record is still kept of the occupations of female emigrants. Out of a total of 16,445 over 16 years of age, 9,609 were going with their husbands or other relative, or to join relatives; while 5,375 gave their occupations as servants, 675 as seamstresses and 630 as prostitutes.
The record of the occupations to which boys emigrating as apprentices are destined is no longer kept, since it was found that the boys' statements were entirely unreliable.