GLOBAL - The parliament in Queensland, Australia, on Thursday, 30 October 2025, passed landmark legislation creating a public register for specific child sexual abusers, a move that casts an international spotlight on the contentious issue of public notification. The law, named "Daniel's Law" in memory of 13-year-old murder victim Daniel Morcombe, has been championed for two decades by his parents, Bruce and Denise Morcombe. The development immediately raises critical questions for Kenya, prompting a fresh look at its own legal frameworks for child protection and the ongoing debate about the utility and risks of such registries.

The Queensland model is not a blanket public database of all offenders. Instead, it establishes a tiered system, primarily modelled on a similar law in Western Australia since 2012. The first tier allows for a public website listing offenders who have breached their reporting obligations and whose whereabouts are unknown to police. Subsequent tiers allow residents to apply for limited, localized information about offenders in their area or to check if a specific individual with unsupervised access to their child is a convicted offender. To prevent vigilantism, the law includes new offences for misusing the information, with penalties of up to 10 years in prison.

The move has been hailed by Queensland's Premier, David Crisafulli, as a tool to “help prevent monsters from hiding in plain sight,” placing the rights of victims and parents ahead of offenders. However, the legislation required overriding the state's Human Rights Act, an acknowledgement of the potential impact on offenders' ability to reintegrate into society.

The Kenyan Context: Law vs. Implementation

The Australian law provides a stark contrast to the situation in Kenya. While Kenya has a robust legal framework designed to protect children, including the Constitution of Kenya (2010), the Sexual Offences Act (2006), and the comprehensive Children Act (2022), it does not have a publicly accessible sex offender registry. The Sexual Offences Act does provide for the creation of a DNA database and a register of convicted offenders, but this is intended for law enforcement and judicial use, not public disclosure.

Despite these laws, child protection remains a significant challenge. According to a 2019 Violence Against Children Survey by the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, nearly half of all young adults in Kenya experienced some form of violence during their childhood. Recent cases, such as the charges against a school director in Kilifi for multiple sexual offenses against minors, highlight ongoing risks and the difficulties in securing convictions and preventing repeat offenses. Enforcement of existing laws is often hampered by systemic issues, including weak digital forensic capacity and corruption, according to a 2025 report by Equality Now and its partners.

The Global Debate on Public Registries

The debate over public sex offender registries is not unique to Kenya. Proponents argue they act as a deterrent, empower communities with information, and provide a sense of justice for victims. However, extensive international research on their effectiveness presents a mixed and often critical picture.

Multiple studies, including a meta-analysis of 25 years of research published in the Journal of Experimental Criminology in 2021, have found that public registries have little to no statistically significant impact on reducing re-offending rates. Some research suggests public notification can be counterproductive, creating social and financial instability for offenders—such as job loss and housing exclusion—that may increase the likelihood of recidivism. The Australian Institute of Criminology notes that while registries have strong public support, they may only have a small deterrent effect on first-time offenders and do little to reduce community fear, especially since the vast majority of child sexual assaults are committed by someone known to the victim, not a stranger listed on a register.

As Kenya continues to grapple with the scourge of child abuse, the Queensland experiment offers a crucial case study. It underscores the global tension between the public's demand for safety and the complex, evidence-based realities of offender management and rehabilitation. The core question for Kenyan policymakers, legal experts, and child protection advocates is whether a public registry would be an effective tool in the local context or if strengthening the implementation of existing laws and investing in preventative measures would offer a more sustainable path to protecting the nation's children.