CO129-519-11 Protection of Women and Girls Amendment Ordinance- 1929 1-11-1929 - 1-11-1929 — Page 12

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to obtaining possession, as a correlative to disposal.

Section 3 of this Ordinance inserts a new section

4.

3A in the principal Ordinance. This new section takes

one defence away from the defendant to any charge under

section 3 of the principal Ordinance, as it provides

that it shall be no defence to any charge under that

section that the woman or girl in question consented

to the transaction or received any part of the

consideration.

5. It has been suggested that a possible defence to

a charge of harbouring under the former section 18 of

Ordinance No. 4 of 1897 would have been that the

accused was the person who had taken the girl out of

the possession of the person having the lawful care of

her, and that harbouring and taking are mutually

exclusive.

It is not to be supposed that the accused

would have expressly admitted the suggested fact, unless

the taking was outside our jurisdiction, but it would have

been argued that the evidence of the prosecution

naturally led to that conclusion. On the other hand,

it is just possible that the evidence of the prosecution

would not have been sufficient to discharge the onus

of proof of a charge of taking under section 26 of the

Ordinance, because under that section practically the

whole onus is on the prosecution, whereas under section

18 a considerable onus is thrown on the defendant.

Accordingly, section 4 of this Ordinance amends section 18

of the principal Ordinance so as to make it clear that

the person who abducts or imports may be convicted of

harbouring. The opportunity is taken of expanding the word "harbour" into "harbour, detain, or have under control".