Photo/Illutration The Children and Families Agency in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

The Children and Families Agency is considering establishing a system equivalent to Britain’s Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS), which would prevent sex offenders from working with children.

The system allows employers in the fields of education and child care to ask the DBS for background information on job-seekers, including criminal records.
Applicants can also submit clean-record certificates from the DBS to potential employers.

According to sources, the Children and Families Agency is now moving toward requiring schools and child care facilities to confirm through the Japanese DBS that a potential employee is not a sex offender.

The government would set up the database of sex crime records that the schools and facilities could access.

Cram schools and sports clubs, however, are more difficult to regulate because they are not overseen by government agencies.

While the Children and Families Agency could not require that such institutions use the DBS system, it proposed issuing certifications to cram schools and sports clubs that used the system voluntarily to screen potential employees for sex crime records.  

The issue has sparked considerable interest following an incident in which a teacher at a major cram school was caught secretly video recording a student asked to speak and act indecently.

Sources said that certifying cram schools and sports clubs would give parents another factor to help them decide whether to send their children there.

But a major hurdle facing agency officials is how to define the sex crimes that would be covered in the proposed DBS.

The agency has had an experts panel discuss what should go into the new system since June, but there has been a wide difference in opinion on the range of crimes that should be covered.

While some have called for using as wide a range of crimes as possible, others called for a more cautious approach to allow sex offenders to be rehabilitated and eventually return to society.

Agency officials initially wanted to submit legislation in the extraordinary Diet session this autumn to establish the Japanese version of the DBS, but reaching a consensus on such a proposal might require more time.

(This article was written by Kenjiro Takahashi and Yuki Kawano.)

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