Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 We Have Failed Our Children
- 2 What Is Wrong with the System? The Courthouse Doors Are Closed to Survivors
- 3 The Solution Is Clear and Simple: Abolish the Statutes of Limitation for Childhood Sexual Abuse
- 4 What It Will Take to Protect Children: What the States Must Do; What the Federal Government Should Do
- 5 Barrier #1: The Insurance Industry
- 6 Barrier #2: The Hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church
- 7 The Other Barriers: Teachers, Defense Attorneys, and an Uninformed Public
- Conclusion: The Coming Civil Rights Movement for Children
- Appendix to Chapter 4
- Appendixes to Chapter 6
- Notes
- Index
1 - We Have Failed Our Children
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 We Have Failed Our Children
- 2 What Is Wrong with the System? The Courthouse Doors Are Closed to Survivors
- 3 The Solution Is Clear and Simple: Abolish the Statutes of Limitation for Childhood Sexual Abuse
- 4 What It Will Take to Protect Children: What the States Must Do; What the Federal Government Should Do
- 5 Barrier #1: The Insurance Industry
- 6 Barrier #2: The Hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church
- 7 The Other Barriers: Teachers, Defense Attorneys, and an Uninformed Public
- Conclusion: The Coming Civil Rights Movement for Children
- Appendix to Chapter 4
- Appendixes to Chapter 6
- Notes
- Index
Summary
I received an e-mail from an incest survivor that beautifully and tragically captures the rotten core of the legal system's handling of childhood sexual abuse:
I am a child of sexual abuse at the hands of my father from the age of 6–12 years. He has also abused two other girls that I know of (have proof) one being a friend of mine from school and the other, our babysitter from when I was about 9 years old. I live day to day with the knowledge of these horrors and seem to get tougher day by day with the injustice of seeing nothing being done. Anyway, I called my father 4 years ago and told him that I have somehow found the self esteem and strength to now confront him and make him answer for all the horror he put myself and these two girls (children at the time) through. He basically laughed at me and told me that there are “Statu[t]e of Limitations.” I pursued the right channels by filing a police report, called the DA's office, contacted attorneys to see if I could pursue this, and come to find out he was right.
This survivor had suffered all of those years, but her father was smugly confident that the law could not make him accountable for what he had done to her – because of a legal technicality called the “statute of limitations” (SOL). He was right.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Justice DeniedWhat America Must Do to Protect its Children, pp. 1 - 14Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008