End protections for sexual predators
Kathryn Robb and other advocates protest in December outside the Mineola district office of State Sen. Elaine Phillips to help get a bill passed in Albany that would temporarily lift the statute of limitations in child sex abuse cases. Credit: Howard Schnapp
Why didn’t you speak up sooner? Why didn’t you tell anyone?
These questions always stop me cold, turn my stomach, and send me back in time — back to when I was just a 9-year-old girl, pinned under the weight of crushing shame as the oxygen slipped out of my bedroom, just moments after he did. When a predator sexually assaults a child, shame, pain and fear wrap around the victim’s throat — choking her or him into a long and lonely silence.
If, and when, a victim like me finally has the strength to come forward years later, New York law says, “Sorry, too late,” and the statute of limitations essentially re-silences the victim and allows the predator to remain hidden. Currently, most victims only have at most until they are 23 years old to file criminal charges or civil claims for child sex abuse.
It’s that simple. New York has atrocious predator-friendly laws and a State Senate that refuses to change them.
This Republican-controlled State Senate — including Long Island’s senators — has repeatedly prevented the Child Victims Act from ever reaching the floor of its chamber. The measure would extend the statute of limitations for victims to be heard in court until age 29 and provide a one-year window for those victims who found their voices too late to hold their abusers accountable.
Typically, many victims do not come forward until they’re in their 40s, long after the current timeline allows them to seek justice. I myself did not speak publicly speak about my abuse until I was 46, and even then I wasn’t able to use my last name due to family concerns. But State Senate leaders continue to muffle and silence the noise around the bill, much in the same way that the predators they are protecting silence victims.
This window has been cited as the main source of opposition to the Child Victims Act in the State Senate — but this is blatantly hypocritical. In June 2016, State Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan and his Senate colleagues voted unanimously to amend and extend the statute of limitations in two bills not related to child sex abuse, and to create an exact same look-back window for the crimes addressed. One bill created a two-year window for Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange who were previously denied justice; a second extended the timeline for those exposed to toxins at federally designated Superfund sites. It is unacceptable for the Republican State Senate conference to support “window” legislation for some groups of victims in New York, but not for children who are sexually abused. It is politically duplicitous, unequal and unfair treatment of victims.
Let us remember that we are talking about sexual predators who abuse children and steal their innocence. The Child Victims Act would give victims more time to come forward, and to those who ran out of time, a short period that would finally allow the long-ago stolen voices of children to return.
I didn’t speak up because I couldn’t. Now New York State senators say I can’t. The voice of a child victim — stolen twice.
Kathryn Robb is an abuse survivor, and advocate for child victims.
