PART XI
OFFENCES AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS
Boards of Visitors
178. —(1) The Minister may, by notification in the Gazette, appoint for every place of safety a Board of Visitors to advise and make recommendations to the Director on such matters as he may refer to it.
(2) A Board of Visitors may be appointed for one or more places of safety as the Minister thinks fit.
(3) A Board of Visitors shall consist of such number of persons as the Minister may determine.
[30/96]
(4) Every person appointed under subsection (1) may enter at reasonable times any place of safety and make such inquiry or examination therein as appears to him necessary and shall also make such report as the Minister may require.[30/96]
(5) Notwithstanding subsection (1), the Minister may direct a Board of Visitors —
(a) to visit any place which is established for the purposes of care and reception of women and girls and which is not a place of safety; and
(b) to make such inquiry or examination therein as appears to the Board necessary and also to make such report as the Minister may require.[30/96]
(6) Any person who refuses admittance to any place of safety or any place referred to in subsection (5) to any member of a Board of Visitors, the Director or any officer deputed by the Director for the purpose or who offers any hindrance or obstruction to any such persons after his identity is reasonably established shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $1,000.[30/96]
Discharge Committees
179. —(1) The Minister may appoint for every place of safety a Discharge Committee which shall advise and make recommendations to the Director on the discharge and aftercare of women and girls in such place of safety.
(2) A Discharge Committee may be appointed in respect of one or more places of safety as the Minister thinks fit.
(3) A Discharge Committee shall consist of such number of persons as the Minister may determine.[30/96]
(4) The Discharge Committee shall review all cases of women and girls when they have been detained for 6 months, and may, after such review, recommend to the Director that any woman or girl shall be discharged or released on licence.[9/67;14/69;26/80]
(5) The Director, on the advice of the Discharge Committee, shall have power to order the discharge or the release on licence of any woman or girl who has been detained in a place of safety for 6 months and on such conditions as may be stated by him in that order.[26/80]
(6) Any woman or girl released from a place of safety on licence by order of the Director, who breaks the conditions of her licence, shall be brought before the Director, who shall have power to order the return of the woman or girl to the place of safety from which she was released, to be detained there for such further period as the Director considers necessary, except where the woman or girl concerned, by reason of any act or omission committed while on licence, renders herself liable to prosecution for any offence, in which case she shall be brought before the appropriate court.[26/80]