AnnualReport-1939

C 3

Between these dates there has been a decrease of 176, so that the number of registered wards remaining in the Colony on 31st December, 1939, is 2,777.

The decrease is made up as follows:-

Died 51 Absconded 7 Married 8 Restored to parents or relatives 51 Left Colony permanently 21 Earning their own living 3 Removed from the registers. 35 176

12. 105 cases with 123 charges were brought under the Protection of Women and Girls Ordinance 1938 and the Offences Against the Persons Ordinance of 1865 (including fifteen charges of ill-treatment and assault), involving 107 defendants and 107 girls. The 107 girls were discovered from reports made as follows:-

Forty-eight by lady inspectors; six by the girls' custodians who wished to register them; fifteen by the girls to the police; seven by the girls themselves to the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs; eight by the police; five by the girls' parents or friends; three by the Anti-Muitsai Society; four by a member of the public; eight by letter and three by members of the staff of the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs.

Four cases were discharged; four cases withdrawn; thirteen defendants were cautioned; nine were bound over and one defendant was sent to a term of imprisonment.

The prosecutions are summarized as follows:-

Ill-treatment by those in charge of a child 7 Common assault 48 Failing to give notice of possession of an unregistered ward 16 Bringing an unregistered ward into the Colony 28 Failing to report change of address of a registered ward 14 Failing to report the intended removal from the Colony of a registered ward 2 Failing to report the intended marriage of a ward ... 123

The number of cases of importation and possession of unregistered wards is increasing owing to the flow of refugees coming to the Colony to avoid hostilities in China. Of the total of 107 girls involved in the prosecutions enumerated above, fifty-seven have been transferred to the register of adopted daughters and wards under the Protection of Women and Girls Ordinance of 1938; thirty-seven were sent to the Po Leung Kuk pending arrangements for their disposal; ten were restored to parents and relatives; two were married and one obtained employment.

13. For a detailed account of the Po Leung Kuk work see Annexe A.