Sexual Offences Amendment Law will cater for sex offenders registry

The Sexual Offences Amendment Bill, once made into law, will acknowledge sex offenders, as these persons’ information will be placed on a sex offenders registry.

This is according to Attorney General Anil Nandlall, who gave an update on the incoming legislation during his Issues in the News programme on Facebook on Tuesday.

The Attorney General explained that, unfortunately, the government has been unable to finalise work on the bill during the current Parliament, but is adamant that the important matter would be up for the next sitting post-2025 elections.

One of the key matters still up for consideration, however, is whether the sex offenders’ registry will be made public. The Attorney General told Ignite News today that that matter is still being discussed.

“We have not settled on that issue as yet; whether it would be public or whether it would be available to certain relevant stakeholder agencies,” the he stated.

He explained that publicising the registry is one of the matters that the government was still consulting on to arrive at a final position. He added, however, that in some countries the register is made public and in others it is not. Guyana, therefore, is still to decide at a policy level whether it will adopt a position where the registry is made public or whether authorised stakeholders will have access to this information.