CO129-519-11 Protection of Women and Girls Amendment Ordinance- 1929 1-11-1929 - 1-11-1929 — Page 4

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Ex had from Hams and Report

24-10.28

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PROTECTION OF WOMEN AND GIRLS AMENDMENT

ORDINANCE, 1929.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL moved the first reading of a Bill intituled “An Ordinance to amend the Protection of Women and Girls Ordinance, 1897.” He said: This Bill, Sir, represents no change in Government policy and makes no very great change in the law. Its objects are two-fold, first to strengthen the hands of the authorities in dealing with the elusive and persistent evil of the traffic in women and girls, and, secondly, to get rid of certain inconsistencies in our present law.

As to the first point, there are two principal changes effected. In the first place it is provided that it shall be no defence to a charge of trafficking in women and girls that the victim herself consented to the transaction or received any share in the consideration for it. In the second place the powers of the Secretary for Chinese Affairs as

regards the detection of offences against the principal Ordinance, are strengthened. At present he has a power of search but he has under the principal Ordinance no power of arrest and no power of seizure of things which may be useful as evidence in the subsequent prosecution of an offence. These powers are given to him by this Bill. He is also given power to question persons found on any premises which he searches in the belief that some offence against the Ordinance has been or is being committed there. It is also made

an offence to obstruct any such search.

With regard to the second main object of the Ordinance, that is, the removal of certain difficulties in our present legislation, the matter is a rather technical one. It is fully explained in the Objects and Reasons. The main objects of the alterations which this Bill proposes to make on that point are to make it quite clear that the natural rights of the parents or other natural guardians of a girl who has been parted with in adoption or parted with in return for payment of money are not absolutely negatived, and in the second place to make clear that the statutory guardianship of the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, given to him where a girl has been given in adoption or has been parted with by her natural guardians in return for payment of money, shall be exercised subject to the provisions of the Female Domestic Service Ordinance. The particular provision which we have in mind is one which provides that if the parents of a mui tsai under eighteen wish to have the girl returned to them the girl must be returned to them without any payment whatsoever unless the Secretary for Chinese Affairs sees some grave objection to such restoration in the interests of the mui tsai herself. In this, as in all other respects, the guiding principle is the question of the interests of the girl herself. I beg to move the first reading.

THE COLONIAL SECRETARY seconded and the Bill was read a first time.

Objects and Reasons.

The "Objects and Reasons" for the Bill were stated as follows:

1. This Ordinance proposes to make various alterations in the Protection of Women and Girls Ordinance, 1897, Ordinance No. 4 of 1897, some with a view to strengthening the hands of the authorities in dealing with the traffic in women and girls, and some in order to get rid of certain difficulties, explained below, which exist at present in our legislation.

2. Section 2 of this Ordinance amends section 3 of the principal Ordinance so as to make paragraph (4) of the latter section more complete. At present that paragraph contains correlative provisions, applicable to the two parties to the transaction, in three cases, i.e.. salc, pledge and hire, but "disposal" has no correlative. The amend-

ment now to be made adds a reference to obtaining possession, as a correlative to disposal.