The Traffic in Women and Girls
.AST week we wrote of the invaluable routine work of the League of Nations, and referred briefly to the Report on the traffic in women and girls. This is a subject which deserves fuller treatment than we were then able to give it. If the League of Nations did not exist, one could have little hope of abolishing one of the vilest and most cruel trades in the world, for nothing is more certain than that preventive measures must be international. For a nation to act alone is as though a man should drive the rats out of his own house, but fail to take concerted precautions with his neighbours. These people who organize the traffic in women and children are human rats who deserve no quarter. They ought to be driven out of all their haunts in every country which calls itself civilized. Indeed, the conduct of any nation in regard to this infamy is in itself a very good test of civilization.
It is true that before the League was created there was international action. It began in 1902, and fresh agreements were made in subsequent years, but it is evident now that many of those countries which ratified the agreements— and by no means all civilized countries did ratify them—have acted as though they had done nothing more than express a pious opinion. With the League applying the goads of monition and publicity, we have much stronger hopes that something will really be done.
A Report which has been drawn up by the Special Committee of experts who have been investigating the traffic for about three years has been presented to the League. The first part of the Report has reached London, and the League is considering whether the second part shall be published. Anyhow, a good deal is already known of the contents of the second part, through unofficial revelations at Geneva. No such painstaking investigation has ever before been made. Some members of the Committee, in order to arrive at the facts, found it necessary to pretend that they were themselves engaged in the traffic. In this way they earned the confidence of the traffickers, and apparently they learned all that there is to know about the business.
The phrase " White Slaves," which is commonly used to describe the women and children who are decoyed to ruin, sounds so melodramatic that in the course of time it has tended, as all such phrases do, to defeat itself. The person who never speaks but in superlatives has no degree of emphasis left for the exceptional occasion. We cannot pay a higher tribute to the Report than to say that it gives a fresh significance and more than its old value to the term " White Slaves." What is required, apart from the stiffening up of regulations in the backward countries—this is, of course, the primary need—is the conscientious exchange of opinions. Rats are migratory animals ; it is necessary to be well-informed of their movements if any campaign of expulsion or slaughter is to be successful. The Republics of South and Central America, for instance, have hitherto offered little or no co-operation, and no one can be surprised at learning that there is a large export of European women and girls to those countries.
Bogus offers of employment in a foreign country are often the means of causing girls to become prostitutes, and such offers are sometimes made through so-called employment agencies. Still more serious, - as one can easily imagine, are the dangers incurred by girls who accept contracts to' perform at cabarets and such-like places of amusement abroad. The Committee dis- covered that girls engaged to dance and sing were often expected to become prostitutes as part of their ordinary duties. Contracts are quoted which prove that the girls who signed had no protection at all. The practice of allowing girls to mingle with the audience, and, worse still, . of requiring _them to sell drink, is simply asking for trouble--trouble for the girl, profit for the despicable third party (man or woman) who is the prevailing figure in this terrible trade.
The difficulties of suppression are, of course, very great, but it is by overcoming them that the League will be justified. One of the principal difficulties is the variety of moral standards in the different countries.
There are many counterparts of the person described by Chaucer, who, though " a full vicious man," could tell a moral tale. Was it not related of a madame who presided over a house of ill-fame that she protested that her house was admirably conducted, and that the young ladies attended prayers every day ? Then there is the strange psychological fact that a girl having been betrayed by a man, who becomes her souteneur and who makes a living out of her degradation, may remain loyally attached to him for many years. One man whose confidence was obtained by an investigator said, " The kid I have got now is only nineteen, and she never took a cent for it. Most of them are away from home. They don't make much, and if you give them clothes and get them to like you, they go out and bring you in good money."
Nineteen years old, however, is not young for this ghastly trade. The Committee says that in one country —why is it not named ?—girls of fourteen and sixteen are admitted to licensed houses. Of course, this means that the age of consent is fixed very low indeed. In some countries it is as low as twelve. It must not be supposed, however, that all girls who sign away their freedom and accept ruin are the victims of their own recklessness. Numerous instances are quoted of bogus marriages. By means of a bogus marriage, and perliapa a false passport, a procurer can .carry off a perfectly respectable and circumspect child, particularly if there is as much laxity as the Committee found, for instance, in Rumania and Poland.
We are glad to say that the Committee uncompro- misingly condemns the system of licensed houses, which is not merely useless but harmful from the point of view of public health. The argument of public health used to be widely accepted, but it is steadily being abandoned as medical knowledge and experience grow.
The method which has been adopted in several countries, including Great Britain, of free treatment of disease at properly-equipped clinics, is by far the most satisfactory.
The only satisfaction which Englishmen will have is reading this Report is that their own country conies well out of the inquiry. For the procurers, Great Britain- is almost a sinking ship ;• for years the rats have been deserting it. The League's Advisory Commission for the protection of young persons is to meet on April 25th, and irt11, no doubt, consider the "Report: Let us hope henceforWard there will be to relaicatioii—of effort. What is wanted to end' White SlaVery is the spirit of Wally:idle' Sharp, who fought 'the law in the interests of black slaves until he at last compelled' it to say that " As soon' as any slave sets his' foot upon English territory he becomes' free." that
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