rather than by application to the Director as legal guardian of children without parents. Details of adoptions are given at Appendix 10. The number of successful applications for adoptions received from oversea has gone down; two international agencies, International Social Service and Catholic Relief Services, continued to act as sponsors in these cases. During the year a hundred and sixteen children left for adoption abroad, as against almost two hundred fifty in 1960-61 (see Appen- dix 11).
46 Under the Protection of Women and Juveniles Ordinance 1951, it is compulsory to register with the department all girls who are adopted under Chinese customary procedures, whereas the registration of adopted boys is voluntary. Under the same ordinance the Director of Social Welfare is empowered to assume guardianship of children in need of care and protection. At the end of the year rather more girls than boys were registered under the ordinance (see Appendix 12).
47 The causes of juvenile mendicancy are numerous; they are frequently to be found in socially inadequate parents, broken homes, lack of attention in the house or of proper education, influence of bad associates, behaviour problems, financial difficulties or poor housing conditions-the symptoms which superficial analysts see at the roots of delinquency. Officers of the Child Welfare Section pay home visits to study the whole background of young beggars and try to find out their real needs and help them to solve their difficulties in more dignified ways. The voluntary institutions mentioned in paragraph 40 are a valuable resource to be able to turn to.
48 Social awareness of the importance of family planning in Hong Kong has been spreading steadily as a result of the patient efforts of the Family Planning Association since it opened its first clinic in 1951. It is now operating fifty-two clinics, many of them in Medical and Health Department clinic premises, including twenty-six Intra-Uterine Device Clinics which specialize in the IUD method of contraception, and much useful guidance was given to seventy thousand individuals during the past year. Slightly more traditional modern male methods of contraception have undoubtedly spread through all classes of the population. The figures of next year's by-census are awaited with interest.
49 The Child Welfare Section of the department has continued to maintain close liaison with voluntary agencies many of which, as already mentioned, receive an annual government subvention. Certain
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