GIRLS MUST REGISTER

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 49, 19 February 1943, Page 5

GIRLS MUST REGISTER

NEW AGE GROUP 18-20 YEARS

FURTHER NATIONAL WORK Girls who have attained their 18th bi'rthday, but who have not yet reached their 20th birthday are required to register for work of national importance. Registration must be made before Friday, February 26. Girls subsequently attaining the age of 18 years or ccas'ing to be excepted under any of the exemptions provided in Employment Order No. 8. which lias now been gazetted, must then register within seven days. Registration should be lodged with the nearest. Manpower Officer. The Minister of Industrial Manpower, the Hon. A. McLagan, said that our essential industries required a 'large number of girilsi if we were to maintain the war production required of us, and already many young girls had voluntarily moved into these industries. Still more were urgently needed in order to fulfill the increasingly important part expected of New Zealand in the South Pacific. The Minister said he realised that the direction of minors would be regarded, wijth some concern by many parents, but the greatest care would be shown to ensure that any direction giiven would not be detrimental to the long-range welfare of the young persons concerned'. The department would regardi itself as htaving a special responsibility in that direction. Girls who were in essential or other important service', said the Minister were unlikely to be directed elsewhere, except where 1 very special circumstances arose, and no girls under 21 would be directed to work outside the locality in which they resided. Further, girls of 18 and 19 would not. be directed to mental or licensed hotels: unless itlley volunteered for such work, and were obviously suited for *iti, and the. parents agreed., Exceptions under the order were: Full-time students at school, training colleges or University colleges; those already' registered for work of national importance); those serving full-time with the Armed Forces or employed by .the Army, Navy or Air Forcei, persons in receipt of social' security invalid pensions';, inmates of hospitals, or the Institute for the Blind; or persons within the scope l of the Mental Defectives Act; persons undergoing sentences of imprisonment or detained in Borstal. There was an obligation on all employers to vise that the registration of the employees affected was made.