Assembly Bill 218 will extend the statute of limitations for reporting childhood sexual assault from the time a victim is age 26 to age 40.
“The idea that someone who is assaulted as a child can actually run out of time to report that abuse is outrageous,”“More and more, we’re hearing about people who were victims years ago but were not ready to come forward to tell their story until now.”
The bill also provides a window of three years for the revival of past claims that might have expired due to the statute of limitations. In addition, damages can be trebled in cases in which a child becomes a victim of sexual assault as the result of an effort to cover up past assaults, Gonzalez said.We shouldn’t be telling victims their time is up when in reality we need them to come forward to protect the community from future abuse,” Gonzalez added.
However, the Victim Policy Institute wrote: “The current law lets too many abusers avoid accountability for their actions. The only good thing to come out of recent scandals was an environment that encouraged well-known women — actors or Olympians — who were victims of childhood sexual assault to come forward.”
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