ENG-1959 — Page 245

SOCIAL WELFARE

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There are three non-Government institutions of particular value to the Probation Section. The Hong Kong Sea School, Stanley, which accommodates 300 boys, all of them either orphans or from poor homes, and trains them for a career at sea. After completing their course of two or three years they are able to find immediate employment with shipping companies. The Children's Centre, Kowloon, offers educational and vocational training to some 100 poor children. The Juvenile Care Centre was established on the Island with the express aim of helping to prevent juvenile delin- quency. This Centre provides education and vocational training for over 800 boys and girls who attend daily, a number of them being accepted upon the recommendation of Probation Officers and welfare agencies. These institutions have in some degree filled the place of a Probation Home, in which offenders may be required to reside as a condition of a Probation Order and have also accom- modated a number of potential juvenile delinquents. It is intended to establish a Probation Home when resources permit.

Moral Welfare. No large city is free from prostitution, but in Hong Kong the problem is aggravated by the conditions of a major seaport. The predominant cause is economic, that is to say, the great difficulty of earning a living.

The law provides extensive sanctions against the exploitation of women, especially young girls; it is the task primarily of the Police to enforce these provisions, and of the Women's and Girls' Section of the Social Welfare Department to seek to rescue the victims of exploitation, so that they may be equipped to earn an honest living and to find a place in society! Efforts are particularly directed towards the younger girls who are discovered in raids on brothels or referred by the Social Hygiene Clinics of the Medical and Health Department, while they are still prepared to welcome advice and training for a normal life.

At the beginning of the year a branch office was opened in Kowloon, designed to render the advice of the trained case-workers of this Section more readily accessible to those who need it. Staff is now on duty until late at night for the purpose of interviewing girls discovered during raids on brothels and for more effective after-care generally.

The Department is fortunate in being able to entrust young prostitutes, in suitable cases, to the care of the Sisters of the Good