Child Sex Abuse Victims Take Years to Report. States Now Give Them That Time
One study found a majority don’t speak about their abuse until age 50. Many states have opened windows for old claims, lifted time bars on new ones.
Child Sex Abuse Victims Take Years to Report. States Now Give Them That Time
One study found a majority don’t speak about their abuse until age 50. Many states have opened windows for old claims, lifted time bars on new ones.
On August 14, 2019, a long-anticipated lookback window opened in New York state, allowing adult survivors of childhood sexual assault a second chance at justice.
Just after midnight, Kathryn Robb, who said she was abused by a family member throughout her childhood, filed her claim — making her case the very first of the nearly 11,000 that would follow, she told The 74. The campaign to pass New York’s Child Victims Act began in 2003 and Robb herself had been fighting for a dozen years, meeting with governors and multiple state legislators.
When it was finally signed into law by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in February 2019, “it was just an unbelievable victory,” said Robb, now an attorney with Enough Abuse who directs its Children’s Justice Campaign. “It was a blood, sweat and tears 12-year effort.”
Before that, the criminal and civil statutes of limitations for most childhood sexual abuse cases in New York started when the victim turned 18 and ended when they turned 23. The Child Victims Act extended that deadline to age 55 for civil cases and 28 for criminal ones. It also opened a one-year window for adult victims who missed those original cut-off dates to file civil claims against their alleged perpetrators and any private or public organizations that shielded their abusers.
Once COVID hit and courts largely shut down, Cuomo, who himself would resign a year later amid sexual harassment allegations, signed an executive order extending the window an additional 12 months.
In all, 10,787 cases were filed by 14,592 plaintiffs alleging past abuse — thousands more than in any other state that passed similar lookback legislation. In California, the most populous state in the country, 1,150 plaintiffs filed such cases during its most recent window, according to the advocacy organization Child USA.
Moving forward, New York’s extended statute of limitations covers anyone younger than 23 at the time that the Child Victims Act was approved. The new rules also removed a requirement that any survivor planning to sue a public institution, such as a school, had to first file a “notice of claim” within 90 days of the abuse — a stipulation which runs counter to a large body of research demonstrating how long it typically takes victims to report.
“When this happens to children, they bury it,” said Cynthia LaFave, an attorney who worked on nearly 500 Child Victims Act cases. “It’s like a cancer that’s buried inside of them, and it just festers. It may take many years for them to realize it’s actually a good thing to bring it out into the open.”
“If we didn’t have this extension to the age of 55, many of these cases would never be brought,” she added.
The Child Victims Act makes New York one of at least 30 states and territories which have re-upped previously expired child sex abuse claims with either a lookback window or age limit revival law, according to Child USA. California was the first to do so since the organization started tracking these bills in 2002.
Late this summer, California legislators moved to amend the state’s latest revival law, which was adopted in 2019 and has resulted in enormous payouts by public entities, including Los Angeles Unified School District borrowing $500 million to settle sex abuse cases brought by former students. Gov. Gavin Newsom has until Sept. 30 to either approve or veto the measure.
Some states, such as Delaware, have passed legislation doing away with civil statutes of limitations for child sexual abuse claims altogether moving forward. A bill that would lift them for past cases as well is expected to be re-introduced in January.
This swell of legislation, largely concentrated in the past decade, has come in response to the growing understanding of what the aftermath of these crimes actually looks like. One Child USA study of more than 1,500 plaintiffs who filed childhood sexual assault claims against the Boy Scouts of America found that on average, the abuse wasn’t disclosed for 29 years and the majority didn’t speak of it until they were at least 50. By that point in their adulthood, legal recourse is largely unavailable.
The nation’s patchwork of laws means that for many survivors justice “depends sadly on where you live and where you were abused,” said Helene Weiss, a partner at Marsh Law Firm, which is handling about 1,000 Child Victims Act cases. “If you were abused in the wrong state, sorry you can’t file a lawsuit.”
Having a lookback window and suing someone is not as good as just not having been abused period. But I can assure you that being able to know that my abuser can’t hurt someone has helped me a lot to heal.”
Faith Colson, advocate
She’s hopeful another window will open across New York.
“There are still a lot of survivors out there who didn’t hear about the law until it was too late,” she said. “Or they’re just calling in now because they saw something on the news about it … unfortunately, we can’t do anything to really help these people.”
In 2022, a second lookback window was opened — broader in its scope of eligible crimes, but narrower in geography, covering only New York City. The Gender Motivated Violence Act allows survivors of any gender-based violence to initiate civil lawsuits against perpetrators or institutions regardless of when the abuse occurred. This included sexual violence as well as domestic violence; physical or verbal assault and battery; human trafficking; and false imprisonment. The original window to file claims closed in February 2025; a second one re-opened in January 2026 and runs through July 2027.
Faith Colson is an advocate who made a delayed report to Chicago police seven years ago about abuse she experienced at the hands of her high school physics teacher. The abuse, which started when she was 17, continued until she was 21.
“Having a lookback window and suing someone is not as good as just not having been abused period,” said Colson, whose former teacher was ultimately prosecuted and convicted. “(But) I can assure you that being able to know that my abuser can’t hurt someone has helped me a lot to heal.”
Marci Hamilton, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and founder of Child USA, said the lookback windows corrected an unrealistic expectation around reporting childhood assaults while also compelling institutions, like schools, to answer charges that they both enabled sexual abuse and kept it hidden.
“We only know what we know about child sex abuse cover-ups because of the civil lawsuits,” she added.
LaFave believes that when her clients file a complaint, it changes the way institutions look at the problem and forces them to respond to it differently in the future. “That,” she said, “is a wonderful thing.”
“When you’re abused as a child, it changes everything for you. (The burden) isn’t going to be taken away because there’s some settlement or there’s some money paid or even if there’s an apology,” LaFave said. “But if they at least know that they’re doing something good for children today and tomorrow — that is probably the most powerful thing.”
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