Details of Japanese Version of DBS Drawn Up

Jiji Press

18:06 JST, September 6, 2023

TOKYO (Jiji Press) — The Children and Families Agency has drawn up the details of a planned Japanese version of Britain’s Disclosure and Barring Service, which requires people seeking jobs related to children to submit certificates proving that they have no record of sex crimes, it was learned Tuesday.

The agency presented a draft report on the proposed system to a related expert panel on the day. It plans to submit a bill to establish the system during this autumn’s extraordinary Diet session.

According to the draft report, schools and nursery centers, as well as certified kodomoen kindergarten-nursery hybrids, foster homes and centers for children with disabilities, will be obliged to check whether their prospective employees have records of sex crimes.

For other facilities, such as cram schools, sports clubs, uncertified nursery facilities, gakudo hoiku after-school care facilities for elementary school children and schools for actors and singers, a program will be established to certify them if they check sex crime records on a voluntary basis. The government will announce the names of certified facilities.

Masanobu Ogura, minister in charge of policies for children, told a press conference on Tuesday that the certification program is expected to make such voluntary checks virtually mandatory.

Those with sex crime records will not be hired or will be given jobs that do not involve contact with children.

Subject to the checks will be only court-confirmed sex crimes. In the draft report, the agency showed a cautious view about including cases in which offenders escaped indictment, and also mentioned the need for further discussions on whether to include violations of related prefectural ordinances.