The state’s Family Protection Agency (FPA) has on Thursday established a regulation for the database of sexual offenders in the Maldives.

The Special Provisions Act to Deal with Child Sex Abuse Offenders, passed in 2009, makes it mandatory to establish a register for sexual offenders. 

The Sexual Offences Act identifies 21 offences, individuals who offend any of these may be registered in the database. 

However, individuals under the age of 18 at the time of committing the offence will be omitted, and individuals exonerated by appeal of their conviction will have their names removed as well.

A database was uploaded by the Gender Ministry in 2015, five years after the Special Provisions Act came into effect.

The delay was reportedly caused by disagreement between government offices over which of them would handle the database.