TNAG-0531-FCO40-626-Application-of-International-Labour-Convention-to-Hong-Kong-1975 — Page 200

Minimum Age (Industry) 1919

20°/2/1

This Convention has been declared fully applied to Hong Kong.

The observations of the Committee of Experts were conveyed to

the Government of Hong Kong and a reply has been received indica-s

ting that some difficulty has been experienced in finding a form

of words which would satisfy the Committee of Experts and at the

same time, achieve the aim of the present provision which is meant

to exclude from a requirement to register a housewife with an

electric sewing machine who makes her own dresses or sews for a

bazaar and for the householder who finds relaxation in carpentry.

It is also used to cover schools which may have power driven

machinery and which are registrable and inspected under the

Education Ordinance and clubs and other centres established by

voluntary Welfare Agencies which help to alleviate the boredom of

the mentally, physically and socially handicapped in sheltered

workshops or by the provision of training which may one day enable

them to make a living for themselves in the outside world. This

latter group is not approved or supervised by any public authority,

although many are subvented from public funds and the more reput-

able agencies are all members of the Hong Kong Council of Social

Service. The position is complicated by reason of the absence of

a definition of technical school' in the Education Ordinance.

The Hong Kong Government emphasises that it was never intended

that the exclusion should be construed to allow any child to be

employed in anything which could even remotely be construed as

factory in the normal connotation of the word.

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CONFIDENTIAL

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