33. Simple family disputes were frequently settled by arbitration in the nearest Police Station. More serious or involved cases-especially those needing protracted arbitra- tion-had for very many years been dealt with either in the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, or by the New Territories Administration. From 1949 onwards the officers in charge of the Social Welfare Office Welfare Centres also took on a number of these cases.
CHAPTER VIII
MORAL WELFARE
34. There are no licenced houses in Hong Kong, but in common with all large seaports the social problems of prostitu- tion are extremely grave. During the period covered by this report there had as yet been no adequate survey into the reasons which have forced or induced a large numbers of women and girls to be prostitutes in Hong Kong. It is commonly assumed that the principal reason is economic, whether on account of financial distress suffered by the girl or woman herself, or because as a child the girl was sold into the trade by destitute parents.
Another possibility, not proved but reasonably assumed to be common, is that many prostitutes adopt that way of life because they are mentally sub-normal. The social reclamation of such girls and women in a Colony where there are already many more applicants for unskilled work than there are jobs, is almost a forlorn hope. A second difficulty hampering the worker was the very strong local feeling against the employ- ment of any woman or girl who had cut herself off by being a prostitute.
35. Until 1951, the Po Leung Kuk was the only organiza- tion in Hong Kong which attempted any systematic social rehabilitation of young ex-prostitutes. This work reflected great credit on successive Po Leung Kuk Committees, and it was only owing to the fact that a mixed institution of this type is not suitable for such work-and that there was no trained staff to do it-that greater success was not met with.
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