WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC.

White Ribbon, Volume 19, Issue 223, 19 January 1914, Page 1

WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC.

(Continued.) We have dealt first with Indian condition", because the information concerning that country is of an earlier date than th.it the writer has been able to sec ure about Kngland and Europe. “The Shield” says : “White Slavery and the exploitation of the prostitute is no new evil. It was rampant in the middle ages, probably as a survival of the legalised slavery of the earlier centuries. For example, the last edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (Art. Prostitution) tells us that in the reign of Henry 11. regulation" were made for the “stews” of London, which were relegated to the south bank of tin* Thames, near London Bridge. These regulations, according to the Encyclopaedia, were protective rather than repressive, as they settled the rent which the women had to pay, and forbade their compulsory detention. Ihe F.ncy c lopaedia adds that these regulations were re-enacted in the reigns of Kdward 111. and Richard 11. Ihe inference is that prostitutes in this segregated district were continuously oppressed; that repeated legislation was necessary to protect them; and that it failed to do so. Similarly in a memoir presented to the Madrid Congress of 1910, Spanish ordinances of the 16th century are quoted, which furnish abundant evidence that brothel-keepers were already accomplished mistresses irt ail the arts of extortion. Detention of c lothing, the advancing of money on the body of a prostitute, even with

her consent, and the* loading her with debt, are expressly prohibited. “If a woman desires to abandon her evil life she shall do so freely, in spite >f her indebtedness. Masters shall not be empowered to compel her to remain in vice.” Such legislation is forcible proof that White* Slavery was ulreadv well kn >wn and widespread. And in Sp in | restitution w.i- already under "tr ct regulation In the authorities, periodical « xanination included. They attempted an impossibility, and failed. 1 hey could not suppress the traffic \\h lc then maintained the ma«ket ‘ In 1X55 Parent Duchatelet. writing on pro titution, said : “The mist re is of a brothel is always on the tra k of young girls.” In 1X57 a procure "s was convicted of senJing girls from Liverpool to a I censed luothel in Hamburg. in the same year we read (“Shield,” July, 1913) that " \ he brothel keepers of Lv< ns had agents, who supplied them with Belgian. German, and Swiss; in MaiseilL- the keepers and procurers plied their work openly, violating the most ".tc red laws for the purpose of debauching young girls; tie keepers in Strasburg were in active correspondence with agents, and often them elves made expeditions in >e itch of recruits, especially from Maine, Frankfurt, and Carlruhe. Algerian keepers journeyed to France in order to renew their "taff. The police of Berlin were cm the* best of terms with keepers, prostitutes, and huliies, whom they found useful when on the track of c liminals. The* keepers in Berlin had their correspondents in other German c itics, and

personally visited Sweden and wen mark to procure recruits. ... In Hamburg, regulation viitually made the tiatiic compulsory. In that iiu native girls could not be registered without the consent of theii parent;, but in the case of alie n girls this for mality was dispensed with. We ma\ add that the natives aie "till pro hibited from becoming inmates of the licensed brothels of that city, and that in IXX3 scene members of the Dutch Government or Legislature maintained that by elimin.it ng foreign prostitutes there was a possibility of promoting immorality among the fe - male population of Holland. Now that Holland has abolished regulation, it has no doubt got rid of the pagan n >tion that the State has not the same duty towards alien women and girls as to its own daughters.” From this extract we see that W hite Slavery and the Tratlic, as well as prostitution, are no new evils. Nearly 50 years ago the Contagious Diseases Acts were introduced into Kngland, and it was only after an agitation of more than iX years th.it they were tirst suspended, and finally, in IXB7, abolished. But it was not until 1910, 23 \eurs later, after an agitation of 20 years, tiiut our New Zealand Parliament yielded and removed them from our Statutes. As Mrs Josephine Butler, whose name is a household word amongst all women who arc interested in moral reform, was one of the leaders in the agitation for the I nglish rc*| eal, an extract from one of lie 1 papers would not be out of place here giving some description of the C D. Acts. All forms of State regulation of vice con tain the same principles as these

Acts, and are carried out by substantially similar methods. She says : ‘‘lt is truly described as ‘a plan for providing healthy women for profligate men.’ . . . Hy this law policemen- not the local police, but special Government police, in plain clothes were employed to look after the pour women and girls in a subjected town and its neighbourhood. (The subjected towns were certain military and naval stations. In 1864 they numbered n; by 1869 they had increased to 18.) I hese police spies had power to take up any woman, they pleased, on suspicion, that she was not a moral won..in, and to register her name on a shameful register as a prostitute. She was then forced to submit to the horrible ordeal of personal examination, which cannot be described here. It was an act on the part of the Government doctor sui It as would be called an indecent or criminal assault if any other man were to force it upon a woman. And it was the State which forced this indecent assault on the persons of the helpless daughters of the poor.” \\ hen these Ac ts were in force the metropolitan police who enforced them “knew that there was a trade in hnglish girls, and regarded it witn indifference. In an official report, an hnglish officer of police said of an hnglish girl who escaped from a foreign brothel, that she had ‘absconded,’ as if it were a quasicriminal offence to run away from a licensed brothel. Regulation makes the police who are associated with it colourblind, or worse. From this slight survey of the methods of regulation, it will be seen that it has failed to effect anything except to create a feeling of false security; but that i*. has clone much to make the position of the White Slave Traders more secure, and their business more profitable.

Of the various efforts that have, and are still being made for the >uppression of th.‘ Trade it is only possible to touch briefly. As the large majority of both men and women are apathetic, much of the work is of necessity educational, and for that purpose the various so< leties puhlisn weekly, monthly, or quarterly periodicals, as well as pamphlets and hooks, among which maj be mentioned :

“ 1 ho Shield,” published by the British Committee of the International Federation for the Aboliton of State Regulation of \ ice. This com-

mittce has also published a number of pamphlets and hooks by Mrs Josephine butler and others. “The Awakener,” a penny weekly published by “The White Slave Abolition Publications, Limited.” a very good paper, first published about the time of the passing of the Criminal Law Amendment bill (White Slave Act) last year, and still in its first volume. The National Vigilance Association has published two sixpenny books, “ l lie \\ kite Slav e 1 1 a Am ' aid "in the Grip of the \\ lute Slave Trader,” which have been instrumental in protecting some girls from procurers, it lias also taken part in, and organised, various conferences and congresses, the last of which was held in London last June July. At this Congress almost every country in the world was represented. King George sent a special message of encouragement from himself and Queen Mary. It was attended by representatives of the Home Office, the India Office, the Colonial Office, and the Foreign Office, on behalf of their departments. This was referred to by the President, the llarl of Aberdeen, as a proof of the interest shown by the Government in the work of the International bureau. That may he so, and also last year Parliament passed the Criminal Law Amendment bill to better protect girls and punish procurers. but the revelations of the infamous Piccadilly Flat case make it doubtful how far their sympathy is of a practical nature. In this case the woman Gerald was arrested, tried and convicted for keeping a disorderly house, hut none of the men who were her customers were arrested, nor were their names published. At the time of her arrest three girls of 17, 18, and i< ) years were in the house. “The Christian Commonwealth” of August joth, speaking of this case, says : On three occasions Mr Keir Hardie, who deserves great credit for his pertinacity, called attention to the Piccadilly Mat case. His references showed that most revolting practices were carried on in this infamous den, and the demand that the whole matter should he investigated grows in spite of Mr McKenna’s protestations and denials. The longer the facts arc withheld the graver the accusations become. Mr Ramsay MicO'>”tald, for example, affirmed in his »ast Parliamentary letter that if Mr McKenna had J del us what he knows he would have published the names

of some of the leading peers of England.’ The Home Secretary displays a singular inability to realise the real nature of the agitation cau. ed hy this case, and shelters himself behind the quite inadequate plea that there is no legal evidence to convict the woman Gerald of the offence of procuration. but even the DeputyChairman who tried the woman declared that there was “some evidence’ of his offence, but that it was nut the charge in the indictment against her. It will not do for the Home Secretary to waive aside the whole agitation simply on the ground that hte names in the woman’s ledger and diary are in her handwriting, and that the letters were signed only with ‘nicknames.’ Does he expect the woman’s ledger and diary to contain any one else’s handwriting ? In any event, as Mr Mac Donald says, the names are there, and ought not to be there. If they are there unjustly, it will he comparatively easy for the owners to clear themselves. W e repeat that we have utterly no wish to make political capital out of this case. Our demand is that those who .ire charged with the administration of the law shall he cleared of i.»c suspicion that people of wealth and influence have been shielded, and a very light punishment infleted on their partner in guilt, simply because they have wealth and influence.” The contrast of Mr McKenna’s attitude towards this case with .us treatment of the militant suffragettes is striking. This woman was sentenced to the second divson; many suffragettes are sent to the third. She has been indicted on a minor offence, and her accomplices shielded. Whatever our opinion may be of the militant suffragettes, surely no one would put them on the same footing as a procurer. Many of those who joined the National Committee for the suppression of the traffic at first thought much of the horrors of the White Slave Traffic: and little of regulation. Gradually they have been driven to the conclusion that the State toleration of vice is the mainstay of the traffic. We may appear to some to have emphasised unnecessarily the evils of regulation. We have done this because we believe that the majority of the women in our Dominion do not know that regulation is largely responsible for the hold mat the traffic has obtained in older countries.

All over the world there is an active movement for the suppression of this traffic. Last year Chicago’s “Red Lights” were put out.” A segregated area that had “operated in defiance of the law, by permission of the executive government of the city, since the Chicago fire, are closed and literally padlocked.” Active work is being done there, for this is not by any means the end of the traffic, though it is a good step forward. Societies have been organised in many American cities by Dr ITince A. Morrow, of New York, to enlighten the public against those plagues. Mr John 1). Rockefeller, junr., has been very active in investigating the \\ bite Slave Traffic in New York.

In Australia active steps are being t.iken in regard to venereal disease, and also the White Slave Traffic. Some medical men approat hod the National Council of Women in Melbourne, and asked their co-operation m putting “an end to the practice on the part of educated women of pretending not to know what everybody knew they did know,” to which the Council, after full consideration, agreed. Another they have taken up is to persuade the press to call syphilis by its right name, and to drop all ambiguous terms. One point the ladies of Melbourne made very clear was that they would not contemplate any Contagious Diseases Acts or any treatment of women which differed from that of men. it is well that women everywhere should realise the importance of ; his point, th.it measures that deal differently with men and women always increase the evils they are intended to remedy. In regard to different laws for men and women, it might be asked why solicitation by men should not lie made a punishable offence, as it is now for women ?

Of the conditions in our Dominion it is not so easy to gain information. Quite recently the “Dominion” stated that our laws on the subject of brothels required alteration, as at present we were governed by the Knglish law, under which a disorderly house could not be reported if it did not contain more than one woman. That a well-known procurer who had to leave hngland had been living in Wellington, and had several houses at the same time, but .is there was only one woman in each

the law could not touch him. Also, that several soft-drink shops in Auckland had been closed by the polce, but that similar ones had been springing up in Wellington Of organised traffic there does not seem to be any evidence, but there appear to be some cases of attempted pro< uration.

A girl answered an advertisement for a lady help, and >n the train cn route for the situation met a young man friend, who told her that she was going to a brothel. During license days there was a case in Invercargill of a woman meiting strange girls from the country, t.tking them to an hotel, then to her house, one at least being ruined. Another : Two girls arrived in one of our large towns, engaged a cab, and told the driver to take them to a boarding-house. They did not like the appearance of the house at which he stopped, and still less that of the woman who opened the door, so went back to the cab, told the man to drive them to a respectable house, 01 they would report him. On inquiry later, they found that the place was a brothel. At a meeting held in the Lyceum Theatre ju-t prior to tlie passing of the “White Slave Traffic Hill last year, the chairman, the Rev. J. Rattenbury, said that he had been told by those qualified to express an opinion that the traffic lad never been worse than .it the present moment. T ne Bishop of London, speaking at the same meeting, said : “He cl id not believe that one person 111 ten knew how this awful traffic had spread all over the world. It was computed that from one great city alone 51x10 girls were obtained every year Di I the public realise that every railway station was watched, that every steamboat was watched, that a body of men existed for nothing else but to carry on this traffic a pcrfectl) wellpaid, organised traffic throughout the world. If they were going to defeat it they must have the hosts of God as carefully organised and as energetic as were their enemies. ’ W hat is needed is a strong dttcrviined public opinion, that will demand that this tratfii shall erase. To help to create that is our aim, and we believe it cannot In* done until women all over the world realise what a terrible thing this traffic is. There are still many good Christian

women who think it is better not to speak of these things it exists, but it is better to cover it up hide it in silence. As one said recently, “Don’t tell pic; it makes me feel sick. ” Make you feel sick! 1 hope it does! Woman, it is your ov n sister who is undergoing this torture. Won’t you help to release her? Nu; many of you will not—not till it is the sister round whom you have < lasped your arms, who has been part of your life. And then you will wear out your life in a vain attempt, on a blank impenetrable silence, as thousands of mothers and sisters arc doing now. All over the world women arc rising, and in various ways demanding the remedying of grievous wrongs, but for nothing is the demand so strong and urgent as for the suppression of this traflic . W ill you take your part? Do something, however small, to forward this cause. JF.