The news of child sexual abuse in India has unfortunately became more and more regular since past few years. One-fifth of the world’s child population lies in India and woefully, it has the largest number of sexual abuse cases registered in the world. According to  the government figures released  in December 2017, a child is sexually abused every 15 minutes!

But slowly and steadily, the government of India is trying to make changes and in order to act upon it, a registry of sex offenders has been released. This registry is said to contain names, photographs, residential addresses, fingerprints, DNA samples, PAN and Aadhaar numbers of convicted sexual offenders.

According to a report in The Indian Express, the database will contain more than 4.5 lakh cases, including profiles of first-time and repeat offenders, based on details compiled from prisons across the country. The offenders will be classified by criminal history to ascertain if they “pose a serious danger to the community”. There have been instances in the past where convicted sexual offenders have committed the crime multiple times only because there was no central registry maintaining records.

As per an official source, “The National Crime Records Bureau will be the nodal agency to maintain the sex-offenders’ registry. It will help the law-enforcement agencies in identifying the repeat offenders, while people, too, would be aware of those involved in sex crimes.”

With the implementation of this registry, India becomes the ninth country in the world to do so. In the United States, the sex offender registry is available to the public, whereas in India, and other countries like in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and Trinidad & Tobago, the registry will be available only to the law enforcement agencies.

The publication further states that India’s registry will store data for:

– 15 years in the case of those classified as posing “low danger”;
-25 years for those presenting “moderate danger”;
– And throughout the lifetime for “habitual offenders, violent criminals, convicts in gang rapes and custodial rapes”

Despite of the implementation of this registry, there is a section of people who are opposing it due to privacy concerns, one would think that having this database will not only act as a deterrent but also help the law enforcement agencies nab the offenders. This is certainly a step in the positive direction.

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