Po­lice have made a sex of­fend­ers reg­istry pub­lic for the first time, with 16 men ap­pear­ing on it at the mo­ment.

The reg­istry has been re­leased on­line via the link – https://sex­of­fend­ers.gov.tt/

The list con­tains the faces and names of 16 of­fend­ers, with de­tails of their of­fences, their dates of birth and lo­cal­i­ties.

The list has come with a warn­ing against the re­pro­duc­tion and shar­ing of the con­tent.

The web­site states, “Any per­son who in­ten­tion­al­ly and with­out law­ful ex­cuse or jus­ti­fi­ca­tion re­pro­duces, shares or us­es any in­for­ma­tion con­tained on this web­site, com­mits an of­fence and is li­able on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion to a fine of twen­ty-five thou­sand dol­lars and to im­pris­on­ment for three years.”

Un­der the Sex­u­al Of­fences (Amend­ment) Bill 2021 which was de­bat­ed in the Sen­ate in June 2021, two sex of­fend­ers’ reg­is­ters were pro­posed—a web­site for the pub­lic and a reg­is­ter for the Po­lice Ser­vice.

The min­istry point­ed out, “Clause 9 of the Sex­u­al Of­fences (Amend­ment) Bill, 2021 specif­i­cal­ly pro­vides that the pub­lic sex of­fend­er web­site will con­tain in­ter alia, the names of con­vict­ed sex of­fend­ers.”

Then-At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi had said then that peo­ple will have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ap­ply to the court for their in­for­ma­tion to be ex­empt­ed from the web­site.