BPW Demands for Sex Offenders Register; Sex Offender Wanted by Police
The Business and Professional Women (BPW) in Dominica wants a sex offenders register created by the government. The women group said the registry will not only label sex offenders for life, it will also serve to deter sexual aggression against women and minors in the country. The BPW president in Dominica, Rhoda St. John, said the group is working to have the registry actualized in other Caribbean island nations.
“We are working with a number of Caribbean islands where we’re going to be looking at getting the sex offenders registries implemented in as many of the Caribbean islands as we can in 2020,” she explained. “We will be advocating that our laws and the government look at the sex offenders registry as we would like every Caribbean island to implement it seeing that it is an act against women.”
Several countries around the world keep a sex offenders registry to identify sex offenders and check their activities. These registers may be made accessible to the general public or the police and other law enforcement agents alone. It will contain a complete information on the sex offense and if the offender has served out his punishment as prescribed by the courts.
The BPW is also proposing to have the DNA of sex offenders taken and to have them tested for STDs after they are caught in sex crimes. The group equally wants monetary compensation to be given to sex harrassment victims as well as though who contract STDs after being sexually assaulted.
Only Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, two English-speaking Caribbean countries, operate sex offender registeries at the moment. The BPW is looking forward to having the other Caribbean countries operate the registers although it is yet unclear if they will all agree to this proposal.
The Caribbean Committee Against Sex crimes also wants all CARICOM nations to create sex offenders registries with the option of making them accessible only by the police as obtainable in the UK and Canada.
In a related development, the Dominica Police has declared 54-year-old Winston “Shorty” Barber of Tarish Pit wanted for sexually violating a five-year-old minor. His photo has been released to the public with calls made for his arrest wherever he is sighted in the country. The alleged sex offender is currently on the run, and the identity of his victim is protected at the moment because she is a minor.
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