What happened to the campaign to ban slave girls in Hong Kong?

"The Campaign for the Prohibition of Handmaidens"

Since the British occupied Hong Kong in 1842, the colonialists not only implemented a series of colonial policies in Hong Kong, but also vigorously pursued the sale of Chinese slave girls. According to incomplete statistics, by the early 1920s, there were nearly 20,000 slave girls in Hong Kong, most of whom were 14 or 15 years old. These Chinese maidservants, like slaves, lived in the lowest stratum of society, with long labor hours, low living standards, and no personal freedom, as their masters were free to scold and buy and sell them at will, and even to play with them for fun. Many of them were tortured to death, some were forced to commit suicide, or sold as prostitutes, and the old and weak had to wander the streets begging, in an extremely miserable situation. The existence of the maidservant system became a serious social problem in Hong Kong and aroused great concern among progressive Chinese from all walks of life in Hong Kong, so they started an "Anti-Maidservant Storing Movement", also known as the "Abolish Maidservant Movement" and the "Prohibition of Maidservant Movement". The movement was also known as the "Abolish the Handmaiden Movement" and the "Ban the Handmaiden Movement.

On July 22, 1921, the Chinese members of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, Mr. Liu Chubo and Mr. Ho Chak-sang, first issued a notice inviting people from all walks of life to meet and discuss the issue of the handmaiden system, and in the afternoon of July 30th, the first general meeting to study the issue of the handmaiden system was held in the Hong Kong Theatre at the Pacific Theatre, with more than 300 people from all walks of life attending the meeting. At the meeting, due to their different interests and positions, there were two distinct views: one advocated the abolition of the handmaid's system and the return of freedom to the handmaids; the other considered that the handmaids were extremely "comfortable" in the homes of the rich, unlike slaves, and opposed the abolition of the storage of handmaids on the grounds that the number of handmaids was large and difficult to place. Both sides held their own views, and the debate was quite heated. After the meeting, those who held two different views set up corresponding organizations, namely, the "Opposition to the Storage of Handmaids", which advocated the prohibition of handmaids, and the "Prevention of Handmaid Abuse Society", which opposed the prohibition of handmaids, and each of them stepped up their activities.

On August 8, 1921, the "Against the Storage of Handmaidens Association" held the first preparatory meeting against the storage of handmaidens, and adopted a resolution on the establishment of the "Against the Storage of Handmaidens Association" and the "Brief Chapter of the Association Against the Storage of Handmaidens", and affirmed that: "This Association is dedicated to the maintenance of humanity and the abolition of handmaidens. The purpose of the Association is to maintain humanity, abolish the handmaid system, and bring enlightenment to handmaid masters and liberation to handmaids." At the same time, the Declaration Against the Storage of Handmaids was adopted. The Declaration recalled the origins of the problem of servant girls in Hong Kong, exposed the evils of keeping servant girls, and pointed out that: firstly, keeping servant girls is injurious to morals; secondly, it corrupts morals and character; and thirdly, it is indecent and disrupts the peace of the community. Therefore, the handmaiden system must be eliminated, and the vice of keeping handmaidens should be prohibited. The Manifesto also put forward the fundamental ways to carry out the campaign of prohibiting the keeping of handmaids in the future: Firstly, we should try to advocate, vigorously publicize, and create public opinion, so as to make all sectors of the society understand the harmfulness of keeping handmaids; secondly, we should request the government to enact legislation to register and abolish the contract, so as to enable handmaids to obtain personal freedom; thirdly, we should set up a guardian appointed by the government to supervise the guardian; and fourthly, we should set up public welfare places, such as the correctional institutions, to take in the handmaidens who have no dependence on the government. After the meeting, all the members of "Against the Storage of Handmaids" went to different places to carry out propaganda and agitation work, widely develop members, and raise funds for their activities. By February 1922, the membership had grown to over 1,360 people.

While Hong Kong was carrying out the campaign, the Guangdong military government led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen was also actively carrying out the campaign and passed a resolution to prohibit the keeping of maidservants, and on February 24, 1922, President Dr. Sun Yat-sen issued a decree to prohibit the keeping of maidservants, which was a great encouragement and support for Hong Kong's anti-maid-servant-grooming campaign. Later on, the mainland and overseas Chinese also carried out activities to ban the keeping of maidservants, which gave a strong impetus to the deepening of the campaign against the keeping of maidservants in Hong Kong.

From January to March 1922, more than 6,000 Hong Kong seafarers held a general strike under the leadership of So Siu Ching and Lam Wai Man, the leaders of the Chinese Seamen's Industrial Union, to resist the oppression and exploitation by British capitalists and to demand for wage increases. The closure of the seafarers' union by the British authorities in Hong Kong aroused even greater indignation among the workers, and the struggle developed into the Hong Kong Workers' General Union Strike with more than 100,000 participants. With the solidarity of the Secretariat of the China Labor Union, the Guangdong military government and workers from all over the country, the Hong Kong workers persisted in the struggle for 56 days, forcing the British Hong Kong authorities to give in and ending it in victory.

Thus, the official founding meeting of the "Against the Storage of Handmaids", which was originally scheduled to be held in February, was postponed to March 26th at the auditorium of the Hong Kong YMCA, with more than 600 people attending, and representatives of the southern government of Guangdong were also sent to participate in the meeting. With the aim of "to achieve the elimination of the stored handmaidens", the congress adopted a report on the affairs of the organization and elected its leadership, marking a clearer leadership core for the anti-stored handmaiden movement in Hong Kong from then on, which played an important role in the development of the anti-stored handmaiden movement and the leadership of the movement to achieve the final victory. After the meeting, the organization further deepened the campaign on the basis of wider publicity and more sympathy and support from all sectors of the community.

However, the British authorities in Hong Kong, led by the Governor of Hong Kong, Mr. Stubbs, strongly advocated the system of keeping maidservants. The "Anti-Smaiden Storage Association" united the supporters of the ban on the storage of maidservants and launched a tit-for-tat struggle with the British Hong Kong authorities, finally forcing the Governor of Hong Kong to issue the "Prohibition of the Storage of Maidservants" on April 14th, 1922, which explicitly prohibited the storage of maidservants in the territory of Hong Kong. This was the first bill enacted by the British Hong Kong Government to oppose and combat the keeping of maidservants.

While the banning of handmaidens had become a general trend and the anti-handmaiden keeping movement had made great progress, the conservative forces in Hong Kong held a general meeting on January 5, 1923, and clamored for the retention of the handmaiden system, claiming that "to ban handmaidens would be tantamount to condemning the children of the poor and the needy to death", and stating that they "are in favor of protecting the handmaidens". They claimed that "to ban the handmaids would be tantamount to putting the poor children to death" and said that they were "only in favor of the protection of the handmaids" but "strongly disapprove of the banning of the covenant", and opposed the "New Bill on the Prohibition of Handmaidens" formulated by the British Hong Kong authorities.

Their activities aroused the opposition of Hong Kong's progressives from all walks of life, and in the afternoon of January 10th of the same year, Hong Kong residents, labor groups, churches and other people from all walks of life gathered at the Tung Wah Hospital to convene a territory-wide kaifong meeting. At the meeting, many participants pointed out: "The issue of the ban on handmaids is a matter of great importance, and we cannot bear to see our female compatriots suffer such a tragedy." Some of them exclaimed: "We are in the 20th century, all the bad habits should be eliminated, can not be allowed", showing a great determination to abolish the servant girl. Mr. So Siu Ching, Chairman of the Chinese Seamen's Industrial Association, who attended the meeting, said, "The system of buying and selling slave girls should be completely abolished, and there should not be any trace of it left." Later, 154 social organizations, including the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions and the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce, also held a general meeting, at which Su Zhaozheng was elected as the temporary chairman and passed a resolution "in favor of the Ordinance on the prohibition of the sale of slave girls and against the storage of slave girls. On January 13, the "Association Against the Storage of Handmaidens" also held a general meeting and unanimously passed a resolution in favor of the Ordinance and stated that it would ultimately achieve the goal of "eliminating bad customs and protecting human rights" in Hong Kong.

With the intensification of the campaign against the keeping of maidservants and the strong demand of the people of Hong Kong, the Legislative Council of the British Hong Kong Administration finally promulgated in February 1923 the "New Ordinance on the Prohibition of the Keeping of Maidservants", which was also known as the "Ordinance on the Prohibition of the Keeping of Maidservants" or the "Rules for Domestic Servants". In the New Ordinance, it was stipulated that: 1) no one shall henceforth buy or sell a servant girl; 2) no one shall employ a servant girl under the age of 10; 3) a servant girl shall not be resold from one master to another; and 4) all servant girls in Hong Kong shall be registered on a fixed date.

The New Ordinance on the Prohibition of Handmaid's Services, though incomplete, was after all an attempt to liberate the handmaids, who had been living in hell on earth for a long time, from their personal freedom. Its enactment marked the victory of the campaign to ban handmaids in Hong Kong and greatly enhanced the status of women in Hong Kong, and it can be said to be a milestone in the liberation of women in Hong Kong.