The Tribune

By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

NATIONAL Security Minister Dr Bernard Nottage on Friday solicited the engagement of local media outlets to assist in disseminating the Mandatory Action Rescuing Children Operation (MARCO) Alert, which he said is activated "effective immediately".

Dr Nottage told a press conference at Police Headquarters that should a child be reported missing under the proposed regulations, radio stations will be requested to broadcast an alert no less than three times a day. However, he said it would be more practical "if (radio stations) did it as frequently as possible during the course of the day".

Television stations, Dr Nottage said, are requested to broadcast the alert when it is issued and subsequently at each news update, while newspapers are to publish the alert daily. Once the child is recovered, police will notify the relevant media and broadcasting of the alert "shall cease immediately".

Dr Nottage said the regulations currently do not compel media outlets to heed the requests, but merely "assumes that those entities will give maximum co-operation". However, he said if media outlets are unwilling to co-operate, the government would seek to make an amendment to the relevant Act to "make it legally mandatory".

Meanwhile, the Bain and Grant's Town MP said Police Commissioner Ellison Greenslade has taken the regulations and put them in the form of a "force order" for use by police officers. As such, every officer with a copy of the force order will need to know what the order requires and conduct themselves accordingly if a child is reported missing. 

"The agreement that we have with the police now is that - effective immediately - this process will be used," Dr Nottage said. 

The regulations that will govern the MARCO alert system were introduced in the House of Assembly this year. The MARCO alert, as well as a proposed sexual offender's register, are the by-products of the death of 11-year-old Marco Archer, who was murdered by convicted pedophile Kofhe Goodman in 2011. 

Under the MARCO alert, when a child is reported missing and authorities are satisfied that there is a risk of harm or death, the Commissioner of Police will be required to use the alert. 

According to Dr Nottage, on issuance of the alert, the Commissioner "shall cause an alert to be broadcast via commercial radio stations, television broadcasts, teletext communications, electronic network systems, the erection of billboards, or such other means as the minister responsible for national security may deem appropriate.

"The expectation and hope is where children go missing, we can have a more rapid onset of dissemination of information, that we can have full co-operation with the various media houses and media personnel, to give the maximum broadcast of the alert," Dr Nottage said. 

"So what we're saying here is we want the alert to go out very quickly, that it should be broadcast mandatorily on radios, televisions, in newspapers, and of course we have social media now which is better than all of them put together. Certainly the information gets out more quickly."

He added: "In the law, the regulations do not now compel newspapers or radio stations or television stations, but it assumes that those entities will give maximum co-operation. And if they are unwilling to do so, I guess the next step for us would be to make an amendment to make it legally mandatory."

Dr Nottage described the creation of a sexual offender's registry as "a challenge, because there are issues of privacy and confidentiality, etc".

"But we have almost completed the creation of the regulations required thereto, and a sexual offender's register will be created in the not too distant future."

Dr Nottage made the anouncement a day after activists said they were planning to harness the power of social media to demand the creation of a sex offender register and the activation of the MARCO Alert system in a viral protest on Friday night.

Non-profit group Solidarity242 called on Bahamians to flood social networks with hashtags and videos in a bid to grab the attention of lawmakers who have been slow to fully enact amendments to the Sexual Offences Act and the Child Protection Act.

“It has been five years since the Bahamas was rocked by the brutal death of Marco Archer and yet Marco’s Law is not fully functional. There is no sex offender’s registry, there is no MARCO Alert,” said Kishlane Knowles, co-founder of Solidarity242.

“Our children are being left vulnerable and we as Bahamians have to push back and demand that the government does its part in protecting our children, as promised. Sexual predators are walking among us, nameless and faceless,” Ms Knowles said.

Solidarity242 urged people to post on social media using hashtags like #justiceforMarco, #MarcosLaw, #protectourchildren and #Solidarity242.

Meanwhile, Dr Nottage said the Christie administration is in continued discussions with the providers of closed-circuit television (CCTV) with an aim to install cameras throughout New Providence and, to some extent, in Grand Bahama. He said the government should soon be in a position to make a formal announcement on the matter "relatively soon".

Dr Nottage also said the government is in discussions with multimedia companies to "determine whether or not we can get more penetration through the community by using all the technology that's available for us" as he said the country's archipelagic nature could pose a challenge to the dissemination of the MARCO Alert. 

Dr Nottage also called for the establishment of "voluntary assistance" by members of the community if and when children are reported missing.

He added: "We really need to have an efficient and effective system of being able to establish contact throughout the country, throughout the communities, throughout the neighbourhoods in order to give us the best chance of recovering people early on so that they do not come to any harm."  

Social Services Minister Melanie Griffin, who was present at Friday's press conference, praised the activation of the MARCO Alert system. 

"The Department of Social Services certainly welcomes the import of this process," she said. "It's very important; the care and protection of our children is very important to us. We have a child protection unit which is fully manned with social workers and they deal with the care and protection of children on a daily basis, and we work very closely in all aspects of the ministry in any event with the police. So this is just another area that our involvement will be intertwined again."

In late 2013, the government tabled two amendments, one to the Sexual Offences Act and the other to the Child Protection Act, which would create a sexual offender register, and a MARCO alert for missing children, respectively. 

The Child Protection Amendment Act 2014 came into operation on August 26, 2015. The sexual offender's register would place all persons who are convicted of sexual offences on the proposed list.

According to Dr Nottage, any person who causes an alert to be issued contrary to the provisions of the Child Protection Act or falsely reports a child to be missing is liable to summary conviction and a fine not exceeding $2,000.