SELLING DAUGHTERS IN JAPAN.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2325, 4 June 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

SELLING DAUGHTERS IN JAPAN.

A correspondent of the Japan' Mail states that, although the sale of female children for a life of shame is forbidden by the law of Japan, the trade is nevertheless still actively carried on. The writer gives the following instances, of the traffic, from which it appears that the new slave trade is even more shamelessly carried on in the far East than in London :—" While conducting a Sunday school in a provincial city it was noticed that some girls belonging to families that could hardly be spoken of as ' under the pressure of extreme indigence' soon dropped out of the classes. Inquiry showed that they were kept at home to receive lessons upon the-samhen, in order that, because 1 of this accomplishment, they might be -disposed of at a higher price than could otherwise be obtained. The girls professed not to care anything for the sanmen and to be averse 1 to entering a house of ill-fame; hut they must obey their fathers. Re- : monstrances with the parent? availed . nothing. I have knowledge of two oases where girl«, afte* 'the death of ; their parents, were sold by their brothers to pay'the debts of the family. Two or : three years since, when travelling on'a small Japauese steamer, a woman brought a girT, fifteen or sixteen years■: old, bare to the waist, into tho cabin, and commenced negotiating for her sale to one of the passengers, who appeared to be connected with that branch of business. The matter was discussed in the most cold-blooded manner, as though it were . a dog instead of a human bsing that was being bargained for. As the girl was unable to play any musical instrument, the man said that she was not worth more than rive or six yen, and he advised the woman to keep hep 'until she had. been sufficiently trained to sell at a higher price. I was recently told by a Japanese lawyer of high standing'that it would be very difficult to prove any violation of the law against such sales.