CO129-518-9 The Mui-Tsai question- printed papers relating to the system 20-9-1929 - 1-11-1929 — Page 85

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Enclosure 1 in No.

HONG KONG.

No. 1 of 1923.

I assent to this Ordinance.

R. E. STUBBS,

Governor. 15th February, 1923.

An Ordinance to regulate certain forms of female domestic service.

[15th February, 1923.] BE IT ENACTED by the Governor of Hong Kong, with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council thercof, as follows :----

PART I.

1. This Ordinance may be cited as the Female Domestic Service Ordinance, 1923.

2. Whereas certain persons have erroneously supposed that the payment of money to the parent or guardian or employer of a female child, such payment purporting to be in return for the transfer of certain parental rights, may confer certain rights of property in the child and certain rights of retaining possession, custody and control of the child as against the child's parent or guardian, and as against the child herself, it is hereby declared and enacted that no such payment can confer any such rights whatsoever upon the person making such payment or upon any other person.

3. In this Ordinance :---

(a)

<

Mui-tsai

(b)

includes:-

(i) every female domestic servant whose employer for the time being shall have made, directly or indirectly, within or without the Colony, any payment to any person for the purpose of securing the services of such female as a domestic servant;

(ii) every female domestic servant whose employer for the time being shall, within or without the Colony, have acquired the custody, possession or control of such female from, or upon the death of, any former employer who made any such payment as aforesaid.

Prescribed

Ordinance.

means prescribed by regulations made under

PART II.

4. No person shall hereafter take into his employment any mui-tsai.

this

Short title.

Declaratory clause.

Interpreta- tion.

No mui-tsai to be engaged hereafter.

5. No person shall hereafter take into his employment any female domestic No female servant under the age of 10 years.

6. (1) No employer of a mui-tsai shall over-work or ill-treat such mui-tsai, or subject such mui-tsai to any punishment to which such employer might not reason- ably subject his own daughter.

(2) Every employer of a mui-tsai shall provide such mui-tsai with sufficient food and clothing of a reasonable kind, and, in case of illness, with such medical attend- ance as such employer might reasonably have been expected to provide for his own daughter.

domestic servant under 10 to be engaged hereafter.

Treatment of mui-tsai.

7.—(1) In every prosecution for over-work or ill-treatment of a mui-tsai medical Procedure in cases of evidence shall be given before the magistrate trying the case as to the injuries ill-treatment. received by such mui-tsai, and the magistrate shall find whether such ill-treatment amounted, in his opinion, to gross cruelty or not.

gross cruelty.

(2) In the event of such magistrate finding that such ill-treatment amounts to Penalty for gross cruelty, the offender shall not be given the option of paying a fine but shall be sentenced by the magistrate to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year.

8. The provisions of the Offences against the Persons Ordinance, 1865, and of the Protection of Women and Girls' Ordinance, 1897, shall, as hitherto, apply to and include mui-tsai.

9.-(1) No mui-tsai shall hereafter be transferred from one employer to another : Provided that upon the death of the employer of any mui-tsai it shall be lawful for the Secretary for Chinese Affairs to make any order which he may think fit regarding the transfer of such mui-tsai to a new employer.

(2) Every person who after the date of the coming into operation of this Ordinance shall become the actual employer of a mui-tsai by reason of the death of the former employer of such mui-tsai, or for any other reason, shall report such fact in the prescribed manner within one week after he shall have become the actual employer of such mui-tsai.

Applicability of Ordinances Nos. 2 of 1865

and 4 of 1897 to mui-tsai.

No mui-tsai to be

transferred hereafter

from one employer to another

except on death of the former employer.

Restoration to parent or

10. Any mui-tsai who wishes to be restored to the custody of her parent or natural guardian, and any mui-tsai under the age of 18 years whose parent or natural guardian guardian. wishes such mui-tsai to be restored to his custody, shall, without any payment whatsoever be restored to such custody unless the Secretary for Chinese Affairs shall see some grave objection in the interest of such mui-tsai to such restoration.