CO129-519-11 Protection of Women and Girls Amendment Ordinance- 1929 1-11-1929 - 1-11-1929 — Page 13

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6.

Section 32 of the Protection of Women and Girls

Ordinance, 1897, Ordinance No. 4 of 1897, had a curious

history in the five Women and Girls Ordinances enacted

between 1889, the year in which the section first

occurred, and 1897. The section began its career

innocently enough as section 6 of Ordinance No. 9 of

1887. That section provided that whenever the Registrar

General had reason to believe that any girl between six

and sixteen was in the custody of any person who had no

legal right to such custody, and that it was prejudical

to the interests of such child that she should continue

in such custody, he might apply to a judge in chambers

for a writ of habeas corpus, and that on the return of

that writ the judge might make such order respecting

the custody, etc, of the girl as he should deem best in

the interests of the girl. In order to give the judge

full power to act in the best interests of the girl, the

section went on to provide that in dealing with such

cases no parent who had voluntarily parted with the child

for the purpose of adoption or who had received money for

parting with the custody of the child for any other

purpose should be deemed to be entitled as of right to

the custody of the child. This section was repeated in

exactly the same terms as section 23 of Ordinance No. 19

of 1889.

Curiously enough, the section failed to appear

in the consolidating Women and Girls Protection Ordinance,

1890, Ordinance No. 11 of 1890. In the following year

an amending Ordinance was introduced, and it was explained

that the object of the bill was twofold, i.e., to make

certain emendments suggested by the Secretary of State, and

to correct some oversights or omissions in the Ordinance of

One of these oversights or omissions was the

1890.