The year was 2022, and I had a chance to return to Nepal for a short break. Besides the oppressive summer heat in Morang, what has etched into my psyche forever is the rape-murder case of an 18-month-old. The perpetrators have since been imprisoned for life, but the question that has kept haunting me every waking moment ever since is: what happens when those who serve a lighter sentence re-enter society, without any systems in place to track them?

Nepal has laws against sexual violence that look good on paper. Nepal’s legal framework, comprising the National Penal Code, the Children’s Act, the Domestic Violence (Crime and Punishment) Act, etc, provides criminal penalties, yet the sexual violence cases have continued rising. Nepal Police data from FY 2023/2024 confirms an alarming over 50% increase in reported instances of child sexual abuse in a span of just five years. The problem isn’t that we lack laws; we lack structures for long-term monitoring to track who’s already hurt children and stop them from doing it again.

Walk into any police station in your area and ask them to pull up records of convicted sex offenders who’ve moved into the area. You’ll most likely get a shrug. Our record-keeping is fragmented at best. A man convicted in Pokhara can resurface freely in Biratnagar, and no one would know his history. It would take him committing another crime for our laws to come into effect, rendering our child protection policy ineffective. Take, for example, the case in 2018, when an ex-murder convict was implicated in the rape-murder of a 13-year-old in Kanchanpur. That case shook our nation to its core for years. But what died with the public outcry was any real effort to build systems that might prevent such tragedies from happening again.

I am not naive enough to suggest a sexual predator registry will solve everything. But the fact that we’re not even seriously debating it is a problem.

The usual objections come fast: “What about the right to privacy?” “It’s too Western.” “It’s only the poor who’ll be convicted, anyway.” “Mob justice will rise.” I get it, vigilante justice is a real risk in communities like ours, where faith in law enforcement is already thin. But here’s what frustrates me: we use the worst possible version of an idea to dismiss the entire concept.

A registry doesn’t have to mean plastering someone’s photo on a public website. We can follow the example of countries like South Korea and the UK, which have implemented multi-tiered systems in which the high-risk offenders receive more monitoring while lower-risk offenders receive less. The system is aided by judicial review, time limits based on rehabilitation, and appeals process. Hence, the database doesn’t work as a scarlet letter but as a resource to aid police in doing their job. Considering we already use bail conditions and parole monitoring, a sexual predator registry would simply be a more structured, transparent evolution of that same principle.

What often goes missing in these debates is the cost of inaction. The research on repeat offending is clear, and it’s grim. Sexual violence against children isn’t usually impulsive; it’s often calculated, and most offenders do it again if given the opportunity. Meanwhile, the survivors carry trauma that often derails their education, mental health, and economic participation. I have seen this happen on a personal level.

In Nepal, where mental health and abuse survivor resources are few and far between, and stigma remains a powerful barrier, prevention is not just a moral aspiration; it’s a public health necessity.

Dr Pankaj Kumar Singh at Dhulikhel Hospital’s One-Stop Crisis Management Center concluded that abuse has devastating psychological effects on children and underscored the necessity of psychological counseling to prevent long-term harm in his recent five-year review of child sexual assault cases. Every repeat offense is a preventable tragedy.

What would a Nepali Registry look like? That’s exactly the conversation we should be having. Who gets on it? Only those convicted of crimes against minors, or all sexual offenses? How long do they stay on it? Who has access, just the police, or also schools, childcare facilities and adoption agencies doing background checks? How do we protect against data breaches in a country where digital security is already weak? What about rehabilitation programs? Shouldn’t people who’ve genuinely changed get a second chance?

These are hard questions, but that’s not a good enough reason to avoid the discussion anymore. We need all voices at the table: law enforcement, the judiciary, child rights organizations, mental health professionals, survivors’ advocates, not just bureaucrats drafting policy in isolation.

The question isn’t whether a registry is a perfect solution. Nothing is. We also need better-funded police units, rehabilitation programs that work, and support systems for survivors that extend beyond one-off compensation. The question is whether we’re serious about doing everything we reasonably can to protect children, or whether we’re content reacting to tragedies we could have prevented.

I know which side of the question I am on.

Read the full Policy Brief: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5941175

(Gaurav Phuyal is a biomedical researcher working in neurotrauma and a public health policy advocate currently based in Washington, DC. His work focuses on trauma-informed approaches to child protection and justice reform.)