Online campaign urges govt to set up sex offender’s registry

PANAJI: For years, sex-offenders have escaped through loopholes in the system, free to continue committing crimes. Spurred by an insightful conversation with a friend, 24-year-old student of theology and Mumbai-based private firm employee Madonna Rozario Jansen is spearheading a campaign to change that scenario.
Jansen, of Goan origin, used change.org as a platform to start an online campaign urging the government to initiate a sex offender’s registry.If it materializes, the database, vetted by National Crime Records Bureau and other government authorities, will have names, photographs and details about people who have committed sexual and violent offences and who are living in or who are returning into the community.
“My friend Yogi Sama suggested that we needed an accessible sex offenders’ registry and this online petition forum seemed like a small but good idea. A lot of people have access to the internet and spend a lot of time on cat videos and funny memes; I think this is a good way to put the internet to use. A simple two second click on the ‘sign’ button can make a world of a difference,” Jansen said.
For Jansen and other signatories of the online petition, this campaign is a tiny but significant step in making sure that the vulnerable of this country are safe and protected from such predators. “How can something like this not be important? Indian men have this sense of entitlement. That they should get whatever they want and this need to stop,” Julian de Gouveia Pinto, a signatory to the campaign, posted on the online campaign page.
“With the ever increasing numbers of sex crimes committed in our country, it has become crucial for women to take all the preventive measures they can to ensure that they are safe,” said Jansen.
For signatory Conrad Barreto, this registry is the need of the hour. “A registry of this nature has been incorporated in several other countries and has played a major role in preventing repeat offences. Sexual offenders don’t have a set stereotype. We need to have this information in the public domain,” Barreto said.
The petition titled ‘India must have a national sex offender registry’ will be delivered to the National Crime Records Bureau of the ministry of home affairs, Jansen said. Critics of the campaign, however, are sceptical of the vetting process of this proposed registry.