CO129-265 - Public Offices & Others - 1894 — Page 51

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"That this Committee requests the President to enquire fully into the memorial and to report for the consideration of the Committee the facts he may ascertain,-how far the existing law meets those facts, and what action, if any, he considers desirable for the Committee to take on the memorial.'

I have accordingly caused enquiries to be set on foot, and as I am about to leave Rangoon for some months, I place. the results before the Committee without waiting for further evidence.

2. I wish in the first place to bring to notice that the question of the annoyance caused to the public by prostitutes and their associates is an old one in Rangoon, and was gone into by the Committee to a considerable extent in 1884 and 1885, while the Indian Contagious Diseases Act, XIV of 1868, was in force. The Committee passed several resolutions in those years, in response to petitions and representations, ordering the con- finement of prostitutes and brothels to certain fixed parts of the town under the extensive I cannot find, powers in that direction exercisable under the Contagious Diseases Act. however, that these resolutions were ever strictly carried out. The Committee will, how- ever, understand that the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts (XIV of 1868, XXVI of 1868, and Madras Act, VI of 1884, so far as it related to contagious diseases) by Act IX of 1888, without the substitution of any enactment to control the proceedings of prostitutes and brothel-keepers, has entirely altered the situation, and that the matter must now be considered under totally different conditions.

S. I have been requested to enquire into three separate questions raised by the memorialists :--

(i) the prevalence of open prostitution and solicitation in Rangoon ;

(ii) the alleged "slavery" of some of the prostitutes;

(iii) the alleged buying and selling of girls for prostitution.

4. I may say at once that I have confined my enquiries to the first point, because the existing law seems to me to cover every offence likely to be committed with respect as to enslaving women for prostitution and buying and selling girls for that purpose. Sections 341 to 848 of the Indian Penal Code deal with offences relating to wrongful restraint and wrongful confinement. Sections 363 to 874 of the Indian Penal Code like- wise deal with kidnapping, abduction, slavery and forced labour. Moreover, the very offence chiefly complained of under the two last points of this enquiry is expressly dealt with in sections 782 and 373. Again, all the offences above mentioned, except two, are, under the Code of Criminal Procedure, cognizable by the police, and offenders against the two exceptions can be arrested on a Magistrate's warrant.

Now, anyone familiar with the Indian Penal Code will understand me when I say that when it deals with any particular class of offences, every conceivable point in rela- tion to those offences is taken into consideration. With regard therefore to the preven- tion of the enslaving of prostitutes and traffic in girls for prostitution, it is merely a ques- tion of producing sufficient evidence to the police to enable them to act.

All that any one of the memorialists, who has snch evidence at his command, need do is to lay that evidence, confidentiaily or otherwise, before the District Superintendent of Police, who will no doubt take such action as is proper thereon. I do not think it is in the power of the Committee to make any suggestions that would improve the existing law on these subjects, or that any change in the law is necessary.

5. In reference to the first subject for enquiry, the first point I would wish to take into consideration is the extent of the evils complained of, which I would point out are two, namely, the spread of brothels and solicitation.

6. Defining a brothel as a place in which a public prostitute is or remains for the purpose of prostitution, I caused, in December 1893, extensive enquiries to be made as to the exact localities of such places at that time. The result of the enquiries is to be found in the Appendix attached to this memorandum and the localities are shown in the plan made out accordingly and attached hereto. The Committee will perceive that the plan and the list of prothels in the Appendix disclose the existence of a most serious public nuisance. Quite serious enough for the Committee to desire legislative interference, unless the pre- sent law is sufficient to meet the case. Especially is this the case when the situation of the town schools, which are also shown on the plan, are taken into consideration.

7.

Se-

With reference to the list in the Appendix I would draw attention to two matters. Prostitutes form for many reasons a class of persons who constantly shift their residences and what, for want of a better term, may be called their places of business. A list there- fors that is correct for December 1898 is not necessarily quite correct for February 1894, though the number of prostitutes is not likely to vary much from month to month. condly, it will be seen that the names of the owners of the properties in the list, as record- ed in the Municipal assessment rolls, are also given. It is possible that the use to which some of the properties is put is due to the action of lessees and not of the owners themselves. The inclusion of the owner's names in the list may, however, do good by enabling mem- bers of the Committee to draw their attention to actual facts and thereby to induce some of them to take such action as may prevent the use of buildings in respectable quarters us brothels.

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IREC

C.0.

9874

REG 7 JUN J4,

8. Now as to the existing law on the subject of suppressing brothels or confining them to certain areas, a recent case in the District Magistrate's Court will throw some useful light. On the 12th October 1893, the District Superintendent of Police laid before the District Magistrate a petition in which the neighbours complained of the nuisance and offence caused by the two large and prominent brothels in the main thoroughfares of Godwins road and Canal street. The District Magistrate thereupon issued a notice warning the inmates of the brothels that they were liable to prosecution if they continued to engage in prostitution. A number of the persons concerned complained with the notice, but 13 of them refused to do so and were charged with committing a public nai sance under section 290 of the Indian Penal Codo. The District Magistrate found that it was proved that "all the prostitutes in the Canal street* are in the habit of sitting of "their doorways at night with bright lights in their rooms; that in full view of the street "they dress and make themselves up; that they expose their breasts and thighs to passers "by and beckon and call them, and sing obscene songs. Further, that their houses are "resorted to by disorderly characters and that there are constant rows between the "brothel-keepers and the visitors of the women." The Magistrate then goes on to say in his judgment that "Godwins rond and Canal street are two of the principal thoroughfares of Rangoon and the behaviour of the women has long been an open scandal." In the end he inflicted a small fine upon each of the accused with a warning that a continuance of the nuisance would result in enhanced punishment. The case was appealed to the Recorder of Rangoon, who set aside the conviction on the ground that it was necessary to prove that each woman convicted had individually committed the nuisance complained of, whereas the evidence in the case had been directed against the conduct of the inmates of the brothel generally.

9. The law then comes to this. In order to prevent the women of a line of prosti- tutes' houses, like that in Caual street, from misconducting themselves in the outrageous manner above described, it will be necessary to procure the evidence of reapectable witnesses against each woman separately on cach occasion that she misbehaves. No doubt if such evidence were procured often enough the nuisance night die out in any particular neigh- bourhood, but what the Committee has to look at, as a practical administrative body, is: What are the chances of respectable neighbours taking à course so exceedingly disagree- able to themselves and of consenting to constantly appear in evidence against auch a class of defendants? The Committee may take it for grant that they will decline to do anything of the kind, and that so far as the existing law is concerned it is for practical purposes inoperative.

10. The above relates to brothels which are openly conducted so as to be a public offence, and in any case it would not be possible to cause the suppression or removal of a brothel, the inmates of which confined indecencies to the interior of the house. But the Committee will understand that it may well be an intolerable nuisance to householders in a respectable neighbourhood to have established among them a house of ill-fame.

11. It has not been suggested to me in the course of my enquiries that thero is any other enactment than section 290 of the Indian Penal Code under which the brothels can be reached, and it seems to me that nothing effectual can be done to meet the case except the making of an enactment for the purpose. In this matter there is, I find, a recons precedent in India in the Punjab Municipal Aut, XX of 1891, section 204 of which runs as follows:-

Brothels.

204. (1) On the complaint of three or more inhabitants of a municipality that a house in their immediate neighbourhood and within the limits of the municipality is used as a common brothel or lodging-house for prostitutes or disorderly persons of any description to the annoyance of the respectable inhabitants of the vicinity, any Magistrate of the first class having, as such, jurisdiction in the place where the house is situated may summon the owner or tenant of the house to answer the complaint; and, on being satisfied that the house is so used, and is therefore a source of annoyance and offence to the neighbours, may order the owner or tenant to discontinue such use of it; and if he shall fail to comply with such order within five days, may impose upon him a fine to the extent of twenty-five rupees for every day thereafter that the house shall be so used.

(a) This section shall take effect in a municipality only after it has been specially extended thereto by the local Government at the request of the Committee,

Something of the trouble that is now upon us in Rangoon must have been felt in the Punjab towns and led to the above section, which was inserted in Punjab Municipal Act on its amendment and reconstruction in 1891. The section seems to me to meet the wants of Rangoon exactly, for the effect will be to cause brothels to remove from respec- table neighbourhoods, and settle down by a course of natural selection in neighbourhoods which will tolerate them. The section, moreover, is not likely to remain a dead letter, ae to give evidence on such a point as is contained in it is quite a different matter to giving evidence of the nature that the Courts tell us the existing law demands.

*That is, in the brothel next door to the Municipal Girls' School.

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