(Trinidad Express) Independent Senator Hazel Thompson-Ahye has urged government to redouble efforts to eliminate the huge amount of pornographic material circulating in the country.
“Certainly it is putting ideas into people’s heads, is getting people aroused and is causing them to commit crime,” she said, speaking on the Sexual Offences Amendment bill in the Senate on Tuesday.
The Senate unanimously passed the bill on Tuesday which gives the public the right to access a sex offender website providing names, photographs and date of birth of convicted sex offenders.
In the debate, Thompson-Ahye spoke of a man who sexually abused his granddaughter and it involved one single act. “He said hitherto he had been a model citizen and father but he was introduced to a lot of pornographic material in books and videos and there was born the harm that he perpetrated,” she said.
She said the Parliament and social services should also address the issue of juvenile sex offenders which anecdotal evidence suggested was “much more prevalent than we realise, especially within families, brothers and sisters, cousins and step-brothers with devastating long term effects on young girls”. Child abuse often remains hidden and undisclosed, she said.
“Children are suffering and we need to work on them as best as we can,” she said. With respect to the work of the Children’s Authority, she said things had improved but a lot still had to be done.
Thompson-Ahye said the bill dealt with detection of a crime that was traditionally grossly under-reported. The Sex Offenders website applied only to those who are convicted,she said, adding that the website therefore represented a small pool of sex offenders.
She said the Senate was being “delusional” if it felt that enacting legislation for a public sex offenders website would make children safe from predators. “Sex offenders who come to the attention of the law represent only the tip of the iceberg,” she said. “I can’t believe I am hearing that there are only 11 convicted offenders are in the prison for rape, five for indecent assault and one for sex with a minor. So all the others are on Remand, what is happening?” she asked.
Unauthorised access
Thompson-Ayhe said she supported the bill’s inclusion of sex offenders from outside of the country being on the sex offenders website. She said the country had one precedent of a registered sex offender from outside entering the country undetected – Nicki Minaj’ husband. “Fortunately he did not make ‘mas’ here,” she said.
Thompson-Ahye said the Commissioner of Police should make every effort to ensure that the information published on the website is protected from unauthorised access, collection, misuse, alteration or disposal.
She pointed out that if the offender is out on bail pending an appeal for years his name may never make the website and this would defeat the purpose of protecting the population from the sex offender. She said some offenders have clever lawyers well able to manipulate the court system. On the other hand, she said a registered offender, after a period of good behaviour, should be provided with the opportunity to be released from the sex offenders registry.
