NEW YORK
New York Daily News
BY LINDA FAIRSTEIN
SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wednesday, June 1, 2016
There is no class of people more vulnerable to sexual predators than children. In the overwhelming number of cases, the perpetrators are people who have betrayed the trust of children in their care — relatives, foster families, educators, coaches, clergy and health care professionals — who are far more likely to commit the traumatizing acts than strangers our children are brought up to fear.
The greatest damage has been done to child victims whose voices have long been silenced — first, by their abusers, and then by the senseless laws that have placed arbitrary limits on the time they have to seek justice. We cannot save many who have come before this, but we can change the outlook, the possibility of justice — both in criminal and civil court — for the thousands more who have suffered at the hands of predators and those whom we know will come next. The time to pass the Child Victims Act is now.
There is no reasonable opposition to this argument. What is it opponents fear? Some have raised the concern of false reporting, but the statistics are abundantly clear that this problem represents a small fractional proportion — less than 2% of all claims. For example, California saw about five false claims out of 850 against the Catholic Church. False reporting occurs in every category of crime and it is certainly an issue in cases which fall within the statute of limitations. It is part of the job of every prosecutor to identify those complaints and get them out of the system. They are rare, and they should never be a barrier to the overwhelming number of valid complaints that deserve to be investigated.
Is it the ease with which some critics say the reporting occurs? That is terrifically unfair and absurd. One must only meet with, listen to, experience the moment when an adult survivor discloses the torment of her or his youth. In most instances, the first telling of the facts is made after an agonizing period — years and years — of self-doubt, of denial, of wondering whether the listener will blame or believe. To look in the eyes of the individual is to understand immediately the depth of the pain and the searing imprint the criminal conduct has imprinted in the heart and on the soul of the victimized child. I can think of few things more difficult in one’s life than deciding when and to whom to reveal the abuse. That alone makes me understand that only a small number of survivors ever choose to tell their stories. We are not opening the floodgates when we change these laws. Do not be misled by that kind of argument. The inherent difficulty in reopening the wounds caused by sexual abuse prevents victims from ever reporting these crimes.
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