NEW YORK
Times of Israel
Manny Waks
It is widely accepted that around 1 in 5 children – 20% of the population – experience some form of sexual abuse before they turn 18. We also know that a very small proportion of victims ever disclose their abuse and that those who do, typically do so more than twenty years after the fact. These alarming statistics highlight the prevalence as well as the long-term and profound impacts of child sexual abuse. But they also emphasise the urgent need to change the way in which the statute of limitations operates in some regions when it comes to cases of child sexual abuse. That upon attaining the age of 23 in New York, a victim loses the right to pursue justice (criminally or civilly) against their abuser, is out of touch with what we now know to be the reality of such cases.
Brave victims and survivors who muster the courage to disclose their abuse must have recourse to justice at whatever time they decide to come forward. Moreover, perpetrators must be held to account no matter how much time has passed after a particular offense, not only for the sake of justice but also to protect other children who might otherwise be vulnerable. It is simply absurd that an offender may receive lifelong immunity from their crimes through the passage of as little as five years and continue to pose a danger to children, while their victims typically spend decades working up the strength to talk about their detrimental life-changing experience, which often accompanies them for a lifetime.
I am therefore pleased that Kol v’Oz, a newly-established Israel-based organisation to address child sexual abuse in the global Jewish community, has assembled a broad and strong coalition of local and international Jewish organisations, leaders and rabbis to support the change to these outdated laws in New York (where the largest Jewish community exists outside Israel), which are considered the worst in the US alongside those in Alabama, Michigan and Mississippi.
I acknowledge and thank the many individuals and organisations – within and outside the Jewish community – who have been working tirelessly on these changes until now. Moreover, I would like to congratulate the numerous legislators who have been addressing this issue, most notably Assemblywoman Margaret Markey who initially proposed the Child Victims Act (also referred to as The Markey Bill) around a decade ago.
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