cess of repayment is consequently a timely one, thus ensuring the call-girl centres of the continuing services of young prostitutes over prolonged periods of solid money-making time."
Comment
The determination of the Government of Hong Kong to eradicate corruption in the Hong Kong Police recently resulted in considerable publicity for the conviction of a senior police officer on charges of corruption. Another ex-officer, who turned Queen's evidence at the trial, stated later in a television documentary that he had made £i̟ million during his service in Hong Kong and that a Chinese subordinate of his had made £4 m. He also said that 95% of the British officers of the Hong Kong Police took bribes. This corruption feeds on gambling, drugs and vice including prostitution: it is therefore of fundamental relevance to this report.
It is not suggested that Hong Kong is exceptional, or indeed unusual, in this respect, and it is likely that similar conditions in South East Asia and Latin America will be the subject of future reports.
The reasons for the continuance and even growth of such conditions wherever they may occur and for the secrecy in which they thrive are in the case of the indigenous community habitual acceptance through fear, because experience has taught them that, despite the law, the administration cannot or will not protect those who expose cor- ruption. The reasons, in the case of the expatriate community, are the refusal of society to concern itself with the victims and the reluctance of government to legislate in such a way that an effective deterrent may be imposed.
JUNE 1975
The UN Working Group's report of 1975
The Working Group of Experts presented to the Sub-Commission in 1975 a un- animous report saying that the sum of slavery had not diminished in the past decade. It said that the problem was twofold: the collection of evidence and the persuasion of governments to act on it. Its recommendations tacitly implied that the Group had been given neither the means nor the authority to fulfil either part of that task. It said that throughout the long history of international abolition of slavery neither govern- ments nor specialized agencies had provided more than minimal positive information about slavery. The bulk and the positive quality of the information obtained had been contributed by non-governmental organizations. The present experience was no excep- tion.
Among its recommendations were that the Working Group should be established and strengthened, that it should meet for a longer period of deliberation and that it should be enabled to make visits to obtain information and be entitled to invite states, non-governmental organizations and individuals to attend its meetings and assist it in its work. These proposals were debated and diluted by the Sub-Commission.
Introducing a resolution to adopt the Working Group's report Mr. Sekyiamah of Ghana said that the Group could not have fulfilled its task without the help of the Anti- Slavery Society. Only Mr. Smirnov (USSR) offered direct criticism of the Society. In producing a report of 200 pages it had disregarded the stated requirement of brevity. This had contained nothing new. On reaching a reference to a discredited author (Solzhenitsyn--on page 5) he had read no further. No mandate existed for the Working Group to invite NGOs and individuals to attend meetings. (The Secretary of the Society had been asked by the Group's Chairman to participate in all its meetings.) Of the twenty-six members of the Sub-Commission only the Russian, the Egyptian and the Ecuadorian voted against the diluted recommendations of the Group. That the resolution retained as much of value as it did is largely due to the debating skill and determination of Mr. Ben Whitaker (U.K.), Director of the Minority Rights Group and since 1965 a member of the Anti-Slavery Society. The Commission on Human Rights, at its session in March 1976, did not find time to consider the recommendations.
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