The Children’s Act establishes the National Child Protection Register. This is separate from the Sex Offenders Register.

The Child Protection Register contains two lists: 

• Part A, which includes details of children who have been abused and/or neglected, to assist with giving those children special protection and preventing their further abuse and neglect.
• Part B, which includes the details of adults who have been found to be unsuitable to work with children or to have access to them. A finding that a person is unsuitable to work with children can be made by a court or other forum, including for example disciplinary action brought against a teacher, or disciplinary action taken by the South African Council for Educators (SACE). Any person who has been convicted of murder or rape of a child, assault with the intent to do serious harm to a child, keeping child pornography, or of human trafficking, is automatically seen to be unsuitable to work with children and their name should be entered into Part B of the Child Protection Register. 

A court can also order that a person must be listed on Part B of the Child Protection Register. The Child Protection Register is private, but allows people in child protection organisations, as well as members of the police who work on child protection, to access the register. All institutions working with children should check this list before employing anyone. This information can be obtained by writing to the Director General of the Department of Social Development (DSD) on a confidential basis. The Director General must respond in writing within 21 working days to say whether the person’s name appears on Part B of the Child Protection Register. Alternatively, the employer can complete Form 29 from the DSD and send it back to them with the request to complete the details.

Any person convicted of sexual offences against a child or a person who is mentally disabled will have their name recorded in the Sex Offenders Register. The Sex Offenders Register has only recently become operational and is different to the Child Protection Register. Usually an employer would have to get a certificate from the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development to confirm that a potential employee’s name does not appear on the Sexual Offenders Register. If an employer cannot get these details from the department they should try and get a police clearance certificate from the potential employee and ask them to provide an affidavit confirming that they have never been convicted of a sexual offence against a child.