PUTRAJAYA, Sept 24 — The current Child Registry is not comprehensive enough to keep those convicted of crimes against children from taking up jobs involving children said Women, Family and Community Development Deputy Minister Hannah Yeoh.

She said the registry only goes back to conviction records up to three years ago.

"We have to start from ground zero,” she said.

She added that, as of August 27, the registry only contained 326 names of individuals convicted of crimes against children and to make it worse, the names of the victims are also included.

"Victims need assistance, not labelling. If we need a record, it should only be for counselling and rehabilitation purposes. I don’t see any reason why their (victims) names should even be there in the first place,” she told Malay Mail recently.

"This does not make any sense, so we want to move forward and make sure that the list is extensive,” she said.

Sources told Malay Mail that the list, which is in a plain document format, also contains spelling errors of names and there were several duplication of names as well.

Stating that the registry is one of the top priorities of the ministry, Yeoh said the ministry needs the assistance of the courts and police who are the providers of information for the registry.

Yeoh said in a recent meeting with the police and the court officials to discuss the registry, it was revealed the police and courts’ systems are not fully online.

"We want an online system, where checks can be done immediately,” she said.

While budget is a problem as the courts will have to upgrade its system in order to give access to the ministry, Yeoh said the cooperation and sharing of data between agencies is something that needs to be worked on.

She said the courts have also raised concerns that third-party access by the ministry may lead to the risk of court records being tampered with.

"We have asked for a ‘read only’ access, hopefully that is accepted,” she said, adding that the court authorities are looking into the cost involved for the access to be extended.

Yeoh said most of the police data input is done manually, and they too have raised concerns about confidentiality.

"We can start tomorrow but the data providers are our hindrance and we can’t do it without them,” she said.

She said the current checking process takes weeks and that turns many employers off from conducting checks.

She explained the long process: One has to make a written request to the Welfare department, which will then put in another written request to the courts to find out if the person has been convicted of any crime before.

Yeoh said there were also times where request for information from the police had been turned down, citing confidentiality.

"This process can take months and who is going to wait that long for approval to hire?” she said.

Way forward

Yeoh said the ministry wants to take things one step at a time, and the first phase is to do away with manual checks, and get access to the court system on convicted individuals.

"This is doable. Once we are given access to the court system, we can conduct the checks online as soon as they update it,” she said adding that it will save time.

"Every person who has been convicted in court should be in this registry and it is not restricted to crime against children alone. If a person is a rapist and has committed a crime on an adult woman, that is important information for an employer or a parent to know that the person has a criminal history although it is not a crime against a child,” she said.

She also thought the registry should be renamed, saying the Child Registry gave the impression that the children themselves are under scrutiny.

Calls to set up a child registry go back to 2007 after 8-year-old Nurin Jazlin Jazmin was kidnapped, sexually abused and killed. Her body was found inside a bag.

Several cases involving child victims were reported after that and finally in 2016 after the Child Act was amended, the registry came into place.

However a year later, then welfare minister Datuk Seri Rohani Abdul Karim said hardly any employers providing child-related services used the registry.

Rohani also said that the ministry could not force anyone to utilise it due to limited power in enforcing its usage.

In the Dewan Negara recently, Yeoh said the ministry is seeking the automatic registration of sex offenders in the Child Registry.