NEW DELHI: India will join a club of eight countries with a sexual offender database to monitor and track those convicted of such crimes, amidst growing criticism against it in the US, where it is pursued aggressively.
The Cabinet while approving the promulgation of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance, 2018 to award death sentence to child rapists said that the National Crime Records Bureau will maintain a national database and profile of sexual offenders.
This data will be regularly shared with states and Union Territories for tracking, monitoring and investigation, including verification of antecedents by police.
While the registry in the US is public, in other countries like Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa,Trinidad and Tobago and United Kingdom, where such data of convicted sex offenders is maintained, it is purely for the consumption of the law enforcement authorities.
It is not clear if the Indian database will be made public or not.
"Once such a registry comes into being, I am concerned that it might lead to people not reporting rapes or sexual offences, because most of them are by people known to the victims. Also, once you are on the registry, it will mean no jobs, no chance to rehabilitate. Across the world such registries have failed to act as a deterrent," said Bharti Ali of HAQ Centre for Child Rights.