Childhood Sexual Abuse – It's Virtually Never "Too Late" to Hold the Accuser Accountable

Pedophiles are criminals. They’re also cunning. Their "party line" involves a mixture of rationalization and victimization. This is on full display at the Nambla website. It offers a litany of excuses and justifications of sexual relationships between adults and children.

Sexual abuse is prevalent. Even rampant. It’s been going on for thousands of years. The most recent headlines have been made by the Boy Scouts, Catholic Church and Mormon Church.

There are a lot of reasons victims don’t want to come forward. One of them is that they feel like they have waited too long. But in Washington that’s rarely the case. Washington has one of the most expansive statutes of limitations in the whole country.

Washington law goes beyond repressed memory. The statute of limitations on a claim for sexual abuse does not begin to run until the discovery of the "causal relationship between injury and abuse." The statute applies not only to claims against abusers but also to claims against negligent third parties (like spouses and employers).