Social_Welfare_Annual_Report_1965-1966 — Page 37

CHAPTER VI

MORAL WELFARE

The good displeases us when we have not yet grown up

to it.

NIETZSCHE

52 The aim of the Women and Girls' Section of the department is to rehabilitate girls in personal difficulties, or girls engaged in undesir- able occupations, and to give care and advice to unmarried mothers, to girls who demonstrate anti-social behaviour or are in need of care and protection, and to those who have suffered sexual assault. Its officers are responsible for marriage counselling in family disputes, and make inquiries into proposed marriages between young members of visiting or garrison forces and local girls or into other intended marital unions when the Registrar of Marriages finds that there are matters of which he is in doubt and of which he must satisfy himself under the law. Their work is none the easier for the fact that girls have to be willing to accept help if anything practical is to be done. This is particularly true of girls aged 18 and over who are not subject to any direction under the law. The section's responsibility therefore calls for sensitive, sympathetic and skilled casework, which is time-consuming but indispensable if any effective help is to be given. The social and economic conditions that distinguish any large seaport or urban popula- tion combine here to make the task yet more difficult. Hong Kong does not escape the commercialization of sex common to such cities, with crowded housing, separation from parents and the erosion of close-knit family life.

53 The Protection of Women and Juveniles Ordinance 1951, an enactment consolidating and amending various measures that went back to 1897, contains a series of provisions intended to protect women and girls from exploitation and to prevent trafficking and the running of brothels; the enforcement of these provisions is primarily the task of the police. Remedial and after-care services, designed to provide firm psychological support for young women at a time when they are most in need of assistance and understanding, are the responsibility of this department. Prostitutes who are willing to accept help are referred to social hygiene clinics when necessary or for institutional care; the chief aim is to help young girls before they have become hardened and used to easy money. The unmarried mother may be assisted with accom-

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