What is it?

Amendments made to the Sexual Offences Act, which were promulgated in 2007, made provision for a Sexual Offenders Register (Chapter 6).  This Legislation applies to anyone who employs staff who may come into contact with children or mentally disabled people, or areas where children or mentally disabled people congregate.  It forces all employers in this demographic to have all their staff cleared against the Sexual Offenders Register.

Why is it necessary?

South African legislation has some of the best reactive legislation in the world, however, we are sadly lacking in the proactive Legislation and the clearance against the Sexual Offenders Register and Child Protection Register are really the only 2 pieces of proactive legislation available.  It is for this reason that the Sexual Offences act and Children’s Act makes it mandatory for all employers at schools, organisations, clubs or associations whose staff may come into contact with children or mentally disabled people, to have all their staff cleared against the appropriate register.

What are the consequences of not clearing your staff?

The clearance against this register is mandatory and failure to clear staff against this register can result in criminal prosecution and a sentence of a fine and up to seven years imprisonment, or both. That’s for failing to check against the Sexual Offences Register.

The clearance process

The process is as follows:

1. Book a Fingerprint technician for a specific date and time for your school
2. Applicant to sign affidavit
3. Applicant’s fingerprints captured biometrically (5 minutes per person)
4. Fingerprints will be uploaded
5. Results back in 5 days
6. This process needs to be completed every 24 months
7. The Guardian will supply electronic certificates for each “clean” individual as well as an electronic certificate for the school stating that the checks have been conducted.
8. All information gathered will be dealt with in a confidential manner, in accordance with the Act and will be submitted to the necessary departments;
9. All legislative requirements will be met to ensure that the school and staff have completed all checks;
10. The Guardian will send through a list of Frequently Asked Questions that the school management can disseminate to all staff so as to answer the question of why which many teachers and service providers may ask.
11. For the school to be completely compliant all service providers to the school would also need to be cleared. We will supply you with a letter that can be sent out to all service providers explaining the process and costs.
12. The process used by The Guardian, has been vetted by a Senior public prosecutor and found to be aligned 100% to the legislation.

Frequently Asked Questions: