Although the much-anticipated Child Abuse and Sexual Offences Registries were launched back in September, sources have indicated that they were yet to be officially opened to the public.
An officer attached to the Child Care and Protection Agency (CCPA) said that the software has been set up and was being tested to ensure all aspects were intact.
Back in August, CCPA Director Ann Greene revealed the Agency’s plans to have the Registries launched during Child Protection Week.
The Child Abuse Registry will be helpful in providing information in relation to a person’s biography. Greene pointed out that the perpetrators of sexual abuse would be publicised and exposed to the public, who would be able to access the requisite information on the Internet.
“People were clamouring for that, and so I gave a commitment to launch the Child Abuse Registry. It is really to put online the persons who would have committed offences against children. If anybody wants to employ anybody, you could run the Child Abuse Registry,” she explained.
Greene did not reveal the cost of the programme, but only said it was budgeted for and it was a rather technical database.
“A lot of information will be made available through the Registry; (like) the type of abuse, the person’s age, their name, where they’re from, and so on. Because when we set up this database, we can do drafts and look and see where the abusers are. We can pull up the map and see where they are,” she revealed.
The perpetrators’ pictures, she said, will also likely be available through the Registry, since the department is cognisant of the fact that some people have identical names.
It was on this note that the Director reiterated the importance of such a database in combating child abuse nationally.
The Social Protection Ministry first announced plans to establish this type of registry back in 2016. The then Government Information Agency (GINA) had reported that the Ministry would be embarking on a series of community outreaches countrywide to develop a registry to ensure that all vulnerable individuals and families were accounted for.
