Institutions and companies that work with minors will be able to monitor in real time and periodically whether their employees have a history of sexual crimes. Yesterday, the Council of Ministers approved a royal decree that will facilitate access to the central register of sex offenders, which includes those convicted with criminal records for sexual crimes.
This register has existed since 2016 and it is mandatory for anyone who aspires to a job that involves a relationship with minors, such as teachers, coaches and monitors, to obtain a certificate that they are not registered in this file. Since this regulation has been applied, cases of people who were already working with children when they committed sexual crimes have been detected. What the reform will allow is for institutions, companies, trade unions and professional associations, with the worker's permission, to access the register at any time.
The Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Courts, Félix Bolaños, explained that the register will also include people convicted of human trafficking crimes, regardless of the age of the victims. The database will henceforth be called the Central Registry of Sex Offenders and Trafficking in Human Beings.
"We have detected cases of people who, after working with minors and having provided the certificate, committed crimes of this kind," argued Bolaños. With this reform, according to the minister, "it is much more effectively prevented that there are people, sex offenders, who can work in contact with minors". On the other hand, the changes will also allow "an effective and periodic background check for sexual crimes or human trafficking".
The Spanish Government hopes that this modification will offer more security to entities that work with children and will speed up the procedures. Minors from the age of 16, who can work, for example, as monitors of sports activities and camps, will be able to request proof that they do not have a criminal record for direct sexual crimes, a requirement that until now they could only fulfill with the authorization of parents or guardians.
Another of the changes will connect the Spanish criminal records register with the European ones. The aim is to speed up the procedures so that the worker, if he is a citizen of a European Union country, obtains the Spanish certificate and that of his country of origin in the same procedure. The interested party will get both documents in a few minutes, whereas until now it could take several months.
Among the government reform measures approved in the royal decree is the equalization of the regime for the cancellation of criminal records of any conviction outside Spain in order to establish an equivalence with the Spanish system.
"There were countries with different regulations and the cancellation of criminal records either took place very late or was never done," said Bolaños while explaining the changes. The aim, with the reform approved yesterday, is to "adapt everything to the Spanish regime also in terms of canceling criminal records", added the minister.
