TNAG-0644-FCO40-792-Employment-of-children-in-Hong-Kong-1977 — Page 63

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Our Ref: 511/1/1

28th April, 1977.

The Editor,

The Guardian,

192, Gray's Inn Road,

London, W.C.1.

Dear Sir,

Mr. Douglas Board has exposed the basic flaw in Mr. Michael Gillard's article on child labour in Hong Kong by pointing out that the conditions he would have the British Government impose on Hong Kong would drive away the foreign firms and put the people they employ out of work.

However, my main objection to Mr. Gillard's article, as it was to the earlier television programme with which he was associated, is that he has failed to put the problem of child labour in Hong Kong in its proper economic and social context, or to give the Hong Kong Government any credit for its immense achievements against enormous odds.

In Hong Kong, there is a law forbidding the employ- ment of children under the age of 14 in factories. When this law is broken, it is for the courts to decide the punishment. In recent months, they have handed down stiffer fines than those enumerated in Mr. Gillard's article, and the Hong Kong Government welcomes this. It knows, however, that the final

solution of the problem of child labour does not lie in heavier punishment of offenders, but in the removal of social attitudes that give rise to it. In the context of a modern manufacturing economy that has earned Hong Kong a place among the top 20 exporting countries of the world, the incidence of illegal child labour is minimal, but the Hong Kong Government will not be satisfied until it is eradicated entirely.

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