Social_Welfare_Annual_Report_1958-1959 — Page 16

CHAPTER VI

MORAL WELFARE

42. The Protection of Women and Juveniles Ordinance contains extensive provisions designed to protect women and girls against exploitation. Enforcement is a matter primarily for the Police, who conducted ninety five prosecutions during the year for offences under the Ordinance and obtained ninety three convictions.

43. The Women and Girls Section of the Department is concerned chiefly with the welfare of girls in need of care and protection, young prostitutes and unmarried mothers. A branch office of the Section was opened in Buckingham Building, Kowloon, in January 1959 to deal with cases in Kowloon and the New Territories.

44. The total number of women and girls whose welfare was still the concern of the Section at the end of the year was 2,041. Of the 446 new cases seventy one were prostitutes, sixty four unmarried mothers, and 116 the victims of indecent assault. 132 cases were referred by the Police and forty by the Social Hygiene Clinics of the Medical Depart- ment. Further particulars are at Appendix 10.

45. Fifty six women and girls in the care of the Section were married and 156 were found jobs, either in factories or day nurseries or as domestic servants. The factory managers concerned are very satisfied with their work and have indicated that they will give priority in future to applicants recommended by the Section.

46. An important voluntary institution closely associated with the work of the Women and Girls Section is Pelletier Hall, a Home run by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, who run similar homes in many other parts of the world. Pelletier Hall provides residential care and domestic and vocational training for up to 128 girls, mostly between the ages of 14 and 18, who have been persuaded to enter the Home to learn a better way of earning a living than prostitution. This Home takes girls sent to it by the Social Welfare Department only, and there were fifty six new admissions during the year. The devoted work of the Sisters since the Home started in 1956 has proved to be very successful as is shown by the fact that 90% of the girls who have left the Home after periods of 2 to 21 years residence, have settled down in normal forms of employment. Some of them are workers in a textile company making shirts with high speed electrical machines (a form of employment for which special training is provided at the Home), while others are typists, shop assistants or domestic servants.

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