Island Girl Stowaways

Cause Excitement

SYDNEY’S daily press gave con siderable space in September to a couple of Island girls who arrived from Wellington as stowa ways aboard the Dutch freighter Zonnewijk.

Perhaps because Tahitians are thought to be more “glamorous,” the girls, both named Williams but unrelated, were described as Tahitians until later proceedings disclosed otherwise. The girls were from Samoa.

One girl, Anita, alias Sarah, aged 17, was said to have left a Dutch man waiting in the church at Wellington, when they were to have been married some days before her stowing away. She had meanwhile teamed up with another Dutch

seaman In the Zonnewijk who arranged the stowing-away of both girls.

On arrival at Sydney, the girls were locked in a ship’s cabin pending deportation. At night they escaped. One girl, Lili, also aged 17, was recaptured hiding elsewhere in the ship—and packed off to New Zealand aboard another ship.

Dutchman No. 2 and Anita were picked up some days later.

Meanwhile Dutchman No. 1 arrived on the scene as steward in another Dutch ship and, according to the Press, tried to re-establish relations with Anita without success.

Some days later Anita was shipped back to Auckland and the remainder of the sordid story was told in a court there. The girl had gone to New Zealand on a visitor’s permit in September, 1954.