PEOPLE and Social Development Minister Dr Glenn Ramadharsingh said yesterday that a sexual offenders registry was under active consideration by his ministry.

Ramadharsingh spoke to reporters during a walkabout in the Laventille Road, San Juan, area yesterday morning during which he visited several homes to tell the residents of the range of social services available to them.

He was questioned over last week's news report which stated that a sex offender who was fired from his teaching post in the United States was able to land a job in the country teaching at a girls' school.

He said: "Our ministry's position is that we have been on campaign to protect children's rights throughout. Not only do we have strong policy for this but we also have to tighten up the children's bill which we are preparing to lay in Parliament soon."

About the sexual offenders registry, Ramadharsingh said: "One of the things under active consideration is publishing a sexual offenders registry so that when people come for employment we don't get those people.

"Those persons involved in that sick kind of behaviour tend to be recurring criminals and I'm sure that the Ministry of Education will be interested in a registry like that as we are fighting for a more aggressive approach towards sex offenders, both at the legislative level and the policy level."

"At present, we are working on advancing the Children's Authority and bringing that into being (by putting in place) the staff, the organisation, the policy framework and all the rules necessary to give teeth and power to an organisation to act on behalf of our children, whether it is physically removing them from danger, providing assistance or the laws to prosecute people, he added.