HONG KONG: The Law Reform Commission (LRC) is calling for a program to allow prospective employers to check the police records of candidates under consideration for positions as child care workers or as care givers for people who are incapacitated.

The LRC stopped short of calling for a registry of sex offenders, whose data would be open to the public. The Commission said any initiative of that nature must take into account human rights and the Rehabilitation of Offenders Ordinance.

"People who committed an offence in the past and have been rehabilitated are getting on with their lives and this (registry) would hinder their opportunities to find work in the future," said the chairman of the LRC's Review of Sexual Offences Sub-committee, Peter Duncan.

He added that from experience in overseas countries, the life of these people would be adversely affected if their names are available to the public since they would be subjected to abuse.

The system proposed by the LRC would allow employers in child-related enterprises to obtain information on prospective employees for prior sexual offences during the employment screening process. Under the scheme, prospective employees would obtain a code from the police to get their records of sexual offences. The proposed system would not be compulsory, however.

Director of Against Child Abuse Priscilla Lui voiced her disappointment in the interim proposal of the LRC, because the proposal fell short of making the checks mandatory.

"We do support the set-up of the sex offender registry," Lui said. "Prevention is better than cure. The registry itself helps in a way to ensure a certain degree of protection while we are screening personnel to work with children."

"But if it is the decision of those who are looking for jobs to provide this piece of information, it will be a very weak system," Lui added.

(HK Edition 02/03/2010 page1)