CO129-473 - Individuals - 1921 — Page 183

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DAILY NEWS.

MAY 11. 1921.

CHILD SLAVERY UNDER BRITISH RULE.

By H. L. HASLEWOOD, Lient -Commander R.N. (retired). It is high time that the British public ware fully informed of the abominabla Laystem of child-slavery which prevails in

the Crown Colony of Hong Kong.

For nearly a hundred years this island, with its 200,000 Chinese inhabitants, bas been under our rule. There are now some 16,000 Europeans, and the island is con- trolled by the Governor and a Legislative Council When I was acting as Suparin- tendent of the Admiralty Chart Depot thare in 1919 my wife and I were bortified by the screams of a child which came during the evening from Chinese house.

As a result of our efforts to make in- · quiries we came to the conclusion that this must be one of those cases of slavery which we had heard darkly hinted at. When 1¦ reported the case to the police I was told that it was "probably `a`slava girl." My wife immediately began investigations, and these revealed to us the fact, which had indeed already been discussed in a sermon by the British chaplain, that each Chinese house in the Colony had one or more girls virtually in a position of slavery. The custom is called adoption, but money pay- (ments are usually made, and in the majo

rity of cases the girls became household !! drudges and worse. As the result of our motion I relinquished my appointment, and step by step bare furoad the Colonial: Otos to admit the material fact in this grave indictment of British honour. plave Brokers.

A reply recently given by the Colonial Office to questions regarding the buring i and selling of children in Hobg Kong“ was

as follows:

Boying and selling of human beings dow not take place openly in Bung ▲ atom does axist there, as elsaw bers in China, by which, in return

for money payment, girls are trans- ferred by their parents or datural guardians to the sere of another house- bold, usually for the purpose of domstre version, though the transaction scribed by the Chinese as a form of adoption

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Outside official circles it is hard to bellero that anyone can distinguish the difference between the transfer of a girl for a money payment and actual buying and welling

Sheltering under this custom, the most revolting abuses in the traffe of girls und Go- children are openly carried out. betweens or brokers are employed for the ale and purchase of these unfortunate i girls, and the fact that large numbers are sold into the focal houses of ill-fame, and are shipped overseas for the same purpose, is perfectly well known to the whole ship- Iping community

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Sold in Marriage.”

The "Hong Kong Weekly Press" of March 12, 1941, writes as follows:

We have heard one of the leading Chinese residents of Hong Kong express the opinion that fully 90 per cent. of the children bought in the Colony an bought really as a commercial specula bon.

They are purchased at a very tende go for a few dollars, “trained + domestic service for a few years, an sold in marriage perhaps for maji times the original purchase pries,

In airgumstances like these it will ir stantly be recognised that the system i open to great abuse, especially in th case of children who fail to develop per monal attractions which enhance thei marketable value.

An astounding feature of the case is tha the above practice has been definitely ar nounced as illegal in China itself," an that the Colonial Office are fully aware C thin fact, but In spite of this no steps ar salen tó abolish the praction in "Hor Kong.

Burns and Bruises.

Revolting cases of brutal Ill-treatmen were brought before the 11ong Kong magis tracy on July 15 and August 3 of last year, when two girls were taken to the hospital covered with burns and braises from head to foot as a result of the treatment they On had received from their purchasers, January 24 and on Jan. 23 of this year. and also on Feb. 7, three small girl chil dren were taken to hospital in the same condition One of them while gick (as her mistress admitted) had been beaten and kicked about, and bore the marks of a rattan cane. To quote the exact words, she was literally covered with braises caused by some blunt, rough instrument."

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The following case shows that the buy (8)

ing and selling is by no means confined to adoption and domestic service, as the Colonial Office would have us believe:

On December the 8th, 1920, a Chinese woman was charged with obtaining by false pretences the sum of thirty dollars. The evidence showed that she arranged for the sale of her sister as a concubine, As is usual in these cases, Incredible as it may seem, no exception was taken to the buying and selling, but only to the ques tion of fulse pretences, the woman hav- ing represented her sister as being u married.

Babies Burdens.

À case came before the courts recently

to which tiny children aged 11 and 13 were found to be carrying weights of salb. up The steep hill of the Peak, Hong Kong,

from this case questions in the Houl For Commons elicited the fact that there

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itu no regulations in Hong Kong i controlling the amount of work which

child may be valled upon to do, nor any limit of hours for which child may be called upon to work and, further, that a resolution carried unnimously ut a meet- ing of the Sanitary Board in Hong Kong i in May, 1919, calling for by-laws prohibit-i ing the employment of children under the age of 14 in factories or workshops for more than 10 hours in any one day was re-

reted.

is intolerable that such state of slavery should exist in a British colony, where a British Governor rules practically without cheek, and it would appear that nothing but public opinion is likely to effect any real or lasting reform.

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