[[Distributed to the Council and C. 28. M . 14. 1928 IV. the Members of the League.] [C.T.F.E. 364.] LEAGUE OF NATIONS Geneva, January 31st, 1928. TRAFFIC IN WOMEN AND CHILDREN Summary of Annual Reports for 1926, prepared by the Secretariat. Annual Reports for the year 1926 have been received from the Governments of the following countries, colonies, possessions and mandated territories : Belgium. I Cuba. Czechoslovakia. Denmark. France. French Colonies, Possessions, Protectorates and Mandated Territories : Cameroons, French Equatorial Africa, French Guiana, French Possessions in Oceania, French Settlements in India, French Somali Coast, French West Africa, Guadeloupe and Dependencies, Indo-China, Madagascar and Dependencies, Martinique, New Caledonia, Réunion, St. Pierre and Miquelon, Togoland. Germany. Great Britain. British Colonies, Possessions, Protectorates and Mandated Territories : Bahamas, Barbados, Basutoland, Bechuanaland, British Guiana, British Honduras, British Solomon Islands, Cayman Islands, Ceylon, Cyprus, Falkland Islands, Fiji, Gambia, Gibraltar, Gilbert and Ellice Islands, Gold Coast, Iraq, Jamaica, Leeward Islands, Federated Malay States, Unfederated Malay States, Malta, Mauritius, New Hebrides, Nigeria, Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Straits Settlements, Swaziland, Trinidad, Turks and Caicos Islands, Windward Islands, Zanzibar. Hungary. India. Irish Free State. Italy. Japan. Latvia. Monaco1. Netherlands. Netherlands Colonies : Netherlands East Indies. (The report on Surinam is the same as the 1925 report. With regard to Curaçao, the only change is with regard to the reply to Question 2.) Siam. Sweden. Switzerland. Union of South Africa. United States of America2. List o f S t a t e s M e m b e r s o f t h e L e a g u e w h i c h h a v e n o t s e n t A n n u a l R e p o r t s f o r 1926. Abyssinia. Finland. Persia. Albania. Greece. Peru Argentine Republic. Guatemala. Poland. Australia. Haiti. Portugal. Austria. Honduras. Roumania. Bolivia. Liberia. Salvador. Brazil. Lithuania. Kingdom of the Serbs, Bulgaria. Luxemburg. Croats and Slovenes. Chile. New Zealand. Spain. China. Nicaragua. Uruguay. Colombia. Norway. Venezuela. Dominican Republic. Panama. Estonia. Paraguay. a * j1’5 report only states that no case of traffic in women and children occurred during the year. 1 ,lc information received from the United States was submitted in the form of memoranda. Publications of the League of Nations d, N. 925 (F.). 775 (A.). 2/28. Imp. d’Ambilly. IV. SOCIAL 1Q3R TV 1 QUESTION 1. 1. O f f e n c e s D i s c o v e r e d . " Please give as full information as possible of all cases during the year in which persons have been discovered procuring, enticing or leading away women or children of either sex /or immoral purposes in order to gratify the passions of another person or attempting to commit these offences (Articles 1 and 2 of ihe Convention of 1910 and Article 3 of the Convention of 1921;. Please give the age and nationality of the offender and of the victim, the nature of the offence and the action taken; and distinguish as far as possible between cases relating: (a) wholly fo your own country, and (b) partly or mainly to another country, specifying the country. ” Replies, BELGIUM. Eighty Belgians were convicted for acts committed in Belgium and three for acts committed abroad. CUBA. There were three offences covered by Articles 1 and 2 of the 1910 Convention and by Article 3 of the 1921 Convention. Each was a case of the exploitation of a woman by an individual of foreign extraction. It was discovered that one of these individuals, had sought, by contracting marriage, to conceal an offence essentially constituting traffic in women, and thus evade the provisions of the Immigration Law. The three offenders were deported. FRANCE. The number of arrests and direct prosecutions in the Courts for infringements of the various paragraphs of Article 334 of the Penal Code (traffic in women, and other offences against public morals, the enticing of women or girls under age for immoral purposes, the exercise of the trade of souteneur, etc.) was 21. Only five arrests were for clear cases of international traffic in women. The Courts passed sentences varying from 20 days’ to two years’ imprisonment, and from 50 to 100 francs in fines. Three cases were dismissed, owing to the grounds being insufficient, two other prisoners were released, and one case was not proceeded with. The subsidiary penalty of local expulsion wTas enforced in two cases. Various enquiries were made in regard to 11 persons whose associations and movements caused them to be suspected of trafficking, and they were watched. Special notices were sent to the Police agents at the ports and frontiers and to the divisional superintendents oi mobile Police squads, with reference to 20 individuals reported to be traffickers. FRENCH COLONIES, POSSESSIONS, PROTECTORATES AND MANDATED TERRITORIES. Indo-China. — No case of traffic in European women or girls has been brought to the knowledge of the judicial authorities. As regards natives or half-castes, cases of such traffic have become less frequent, owing to the activity of the Police. During 1926, however, within the areas of the Saigon and Hanoi Courts of Appeal, 13 cases of abduction of minors, one case of the sale of women or girls for immoral purposes, three cases of the enticing of minors for immoral purposes, and one case of kidnapping were recorded. Penalties of varying severity were imposed in all these cases. GREAT BRITAIN. 1. A man, aged 44, was sentenced to 11 months' imprisonment for having a tte m p te d to incite a woman to conspire with him in order that a girl aged 10 might be indecently assaulted by him. 2. A woman, aged 39, was prosecuted for : (i) brothel-keeping ; (ii) allowing a child to live in the brothel ; (iii) exercising control. The woman was sentenced to three m o n th s ’ imprisonment with hard labour on each charge, the last sentence to be concurrent. BRITISH COLONIES, POSSESSIONS, PROTECTORATES AND MANDATED TERRITORIES. British Solomon Islands. — During the year 1926, the District Officer, Santa Cruz, reported that nine Reef Island native women were being carried about the district for purposes of prostitution. The women in question were between the ages of 20 and 30 and the offenders approximately 40 years of age. Steps were immediately taken for these women to be re tu rn e d to their own villages in the Reef Islands, and information has since been received from the District Officer that the nine women have returned to their homes. Ceylon. — A Sinhalese man, of about 35 years of age, procured a Sinhalese woman, of ibout 23, for the purpose of sexual intercourse with three European travellers on payment of a certain sum of money. The accused was sentenced to three months’ rigorous imprisonment. Iraq. — 1. A resident of Mosul, aged 29, was granted a passport to proceed to India together with his wife, aged 30, and the Persian maid-servant, aged 20. Three months later, the party returned from India. The maid declared that the man and his wife had made her practise "prostitution, with the result that they had been arrested and deported. The man and his wife were convicted. 2. A woman, aged 20, enticed another woman, aged 20, to her house, where a man of 22 was hiding. On the arrival of the latter woman, he attempted to rape her. The two offenders were convicted. Federated Malay States. — A. Selangor. — Two Cantonese women, each of about 40 vears of age, were convicted for having procured a girl under the age of 20 for immoral purposes. The girl was sent to the Federal Home for Women and Girls pending satisfactory arrangements for her future. B. Perak. — 1. A woman, of about 51 years, was sentenced to three months’ rigorous imprisonment, and subsequently banished, for having brought a girl of 20 from China for the purpose of prostitution. 2. A girl of 18 was enticed from Penang to Taiping by a man who promised to find her work. In Taiping, he tried by threats to entice her to practise prostitution. He was sentenced to three months’ rigorous imprisonment and subsequently banished. 3. A girl from Wai-chow, found in a brothel at Sunger Siput and subsequently sent to the Home for Women and Girls, declared that she had been enticed to Canton by a woman, who there sold her for §290 to another woman. The latter brought her to Taiping and sold her to a servant in a brothel for $450. This servant was arrested, sentenced to two months’ rigorous imprisonment and subsequently banished. C. Pahang. — A Tamil was charged with : (a) kidnapping a female child, aged 10 years ; and (b) having sexual intercourse with her ; he was sentenced to four years’ penal servitude on each charge. Unfederated Malay States. — A. State of Johore. — 1. Two men were discovered making a practice of bringing young prostitutes from Kuala Lumpur to Johore, where they would be without resources, without knowledge of their whereabouts, and then selling them. Action was taken against the men, and the two girls were returned to the protection of the Kuala Lumpur authorities. 2. A married Cantonese, aged 19, wras kidnapped in Canton City, brought to Singapore and sold to an old woman. She was then taken to Batu Pahat by another woman, wrho attempted to place her in a brothel. The latter woman was convicted ; the Singapore broker and the procurer were not to be discovered. The girl was repatriated. 3. Two Cantonese girls, of 14 and 15 years, were kidnapped in China, sold in Singapore and taken to Mersing for purposes of prostitution.