What is it?
A “statute of limitations” is a law that sets a maximum time limit to initiate a legal proceeding after a particular event has occurred. In criminal law, the triggering event is often the commission of a crime or, in some circumstances, the discovery that a crime has occurred. Such laws vary across jurisdictions, particularly related to child sexual abuse and exploitation offenses. In some jurisdictions, “tolling” (a pause or delay of the running of time within a statute of limitations) may occur until the victim reaches a certain age or while the offender is outside the relevant jurisdiction.
NCMEC's Position:
Jurisdictions everywhere should abolish time limits on the initiation of legal proceedings related to child sexual abuse and exploitation, because evidence shows that offenders routinely conceal their crimes and disclosures by survivors are typically delayed for many years, if not withheld entirely.
Why does it matter?
Child sexual abuse and exploitation is a type of crime that typically is committed in relative secrecy, and various dynamics create significant barriers to immediate disclosure by child victims. As a result, these offenses often remain undisclosed by victims, undetected by third parties, and unreported to authorities. When statutes of limitations for these crimes exist, opportunities for victims to seek justice through civil or criminal legal proceedings are lost before many survivors can overcome obstacles to disclosure and participate in legal proceedings. Such laws allow offenders to escape accountability for their actions and incentivize conduct to prevent disclosure and promote secrecy. A legal limit on a survivor’s access to justice can also be a barrier to recovery and healing from traumatic experiences.
What context is relevant?
“Delayed disclosure” by survivors has been studied and is well-established as a reality in many cases of child sexual abuse and exploitation. Furthermore, given the nature of the crime itself, relatively few child sexual abuse and exploitation crimes are committed in view of the public or with the disclosure of the offender’s identity. While delayed disclosure and offender-driven secrecy is expected, institutional actions also contribute to concealing these crimes and are difficult barriers to seeking civil or criminal accountability for child sexual abuse and exploitation. Even when these barriers are overcome, survivors in many jurisdictions face additional obstacles when local or national laws limit the initiation of legal proceedings due to the passage of time since the offense occurred.
For example, in the state of Oregon in the United States, criminal prosecution must be initiated before a child sexual abuse or exploitation victim reaches 30 years of age (see Oregon Revised Statute 131.125). If an offender can maintain secrecy, a survivor’s disclosure is delayed, and/or a cover-up is effective enough to prevent such legal action before that time, then the offender would be free from criminal accountability in that jurisdiction.
Time limits in several countries correspond to the potential period of imprisonment associated with the offense. When those sentences are short, crime victims are denied access to justice twice—once through the short penalty, and again through the correspondingly short statute of limitations.
Other jurisdictions—such as Chile and El Salvador—have already abolished statutes of limitations, if they ever existed, for child sexual abuse and exploitation crimes.
What does the data reveal?
CHILD USA—“the nonprofit think tank for children”—is a leading voice in the movement to reform statutes of limitations both in the United States and globally. Its publications cite research indicating that 80% of survivors’ disclosures are delayed, if ever made at all.
Proposed regulation in the European Union has called for extending statutes of limitations across Member States to 20, 25, or 30 years—depending on the nature of the offense—after the victim reaches the age of majority. As rationale for this framework, the proposed regulation cites research showing that survivors of child sexual abuse who eventually disclose take, on average, 17.2 to 21.4 years to do so; 60-70% do not disclose until they are adults; and nearly 28% never disclose at all.
While NCMEC’s case information does not specifically address statutes of limitations, NCMEC’s practice of retaining information reported to the CyberTipline enables investigators to search for and analyze older information in support of current investigations, or for newly reported information to refresh and advance investigations that might have gone cold. This information can be fully utilized to seek justice for victims and accountability for offenders only where statutes of limitations do not exist.
What have survivors said about it?
Survivor experiences of delayed disclosure are common and consistent with research on this topic. Some survivors have described statutes of limitations as additional barriers to seeking justice and also a mechanism that endangers communities by shielding offenders from accountability. When law enforcement agencies do not investigate allegations that are no longer prosecutable under a jurisdiction’s statute of limitation, additional child victims and vulnerable adults—including those whose abuse is still concealed—may remain at risk of continued harm. Although advocacy for abolishing statutes of limitations related to child sexual exploitation offenses is strong, when limits are not eliminated, survivors have called for expanding relevant time periods.
Regarding the common practice of delaying the running of a statute of limitation until a survivor reaches the age of majority, survivors have noted that few, if any, of the factors contributing to delayed disclosure are resolved by attaining a certain age. Particularly in circumstances of familial abuse, offenders are often able to exert control over survivors well into adulthood. Even when that control does not extend into adulthood, investigative, prosecutorial, and judicial agencies that insufficiently incorporate trauma-informed practices may also deter survivors from fully engaging to seek justice. Eliminating statutes of limitations would also allow time for systems to improve to mitigate risks of additional harm to survivors.
Although there are statutes of limitations for criminal accountability, there are no limits for the effects of these crimes on the victim. The adverse impact lasts a lifetime.
- Survivor
Statutes of limitations in cases of child sexual abuse and exploitation should be abolished on a global scale, because we know—from a trauma-informed perspective and evidence-based research—that such limits place an undue burden on victims to report crimes committed against them before victims are psychologically capable of doing so.
- Survivor
What drives opposing viewpoints?
Statutes of limitations are often based on concepts of reasonableness and fairness, particularly in favor of offenders. The rationale may be that it is “reasonable” for a child victim, upon reaching adulthood, to overcome obstacles to reporting and make necessary disclosures within a certain amount of time. Similarly, some believe that it is only “fair” that suspected offenders be shielded from accusations of historical misconducts because it may be more difficult to mount a defense after the passage of many years.