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The main difference
payment of
is the non
wages.
Sur.
service of their employers, whom they may, however,
leave if they so desire. Provision is made
for the punishment of persons ill-treating
muit sai (or children generally) and the
Govt. has taken proceedings in the rare cases brought to its notice. The taking into
employment of fresh muit sai is forbidden by law.
4. The Govt. has no knowledge to what ... as to fresh mus (say)
extent this law is broken, no cases having been
brought to its notice.
It recognises that
cases do in all probability occur since the
enforcement of the law is in practice impossible because muit sai are differentiated from ordinary
domestic servants only by the payment of a lump
sum by their employers to their parents; such
payments cannot be proved where the parents and
the girl are willing to join in deceiving the
authorities. Even registration would not
surmount this difficulty and effective registra-
tion, with its corollary of house-to-house
inspection, is impossible for the reasons given
in the despatch, besides being undesirable
because it involves legal recognition of the system.
The proposal put forward by the local Anti-Muitsai Society to recognise a system of "adoption" would only perpetuate the muitsai
under another name.
5. The system, whether called muit sai,
adoption or domestic service, will only be abolished when the Chinese are ready to do it
themselves. Already the system is frowned
Ary
upon the better-class Chinese and it may be expected to disappear gradually as education
and
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