Support Childhood sexual abuse victims: Amend the Limitations Act 1969

Limitations Act 1969 18A Personal injury
An action on a cause of action to which this section applies is not maintainable if brought after the expiration of a limitation period of 3 years running from the date on which the cause of action first accrues to the plaintiff or to a person through whom the plaintiff claims.

Childhood sexual abuse

For victims of childhood sexual abuse their life is irrevocably changed forever, for some; they will live their entire lives without disclosing to anyone, others will find the strength and courage to disclose to someone at some point in their lives.

Statistics and Figures

It is commonly accepted that:
•1 in 6 boys is sexually abused before the age of 18.
•1 in 4 girls is sexually abused before the age of 18.
•This is equivalent to 332,516 Queensland men having experienced child sexual abuse.
•Over 30% of confirmed reports of child sexual abuse involve male victims.
•Between 70-90% of men who have experienced child sexual abuse haven’t told anyone!
•In on study of 40 boys who experienced child sexual abuse and attended an adolescent medical facility, none had ever told their primary care giver.
•Men are one and a half times less likely than women to report rape to police. This makes for an extremely small figure, given that only between 5–10% of women report rape to police.
•There appear to be some particularly powerful forces preventing adult men from telling. From their experience of men's groups, counsellors say that many men do not disclose until they are in their thirties and some never disclose.
http://www.livingwell.org.au/information/statistics/
http://livingwell.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/WhoCanAManTell.pdf

Some personal prospective?

I was sexually abused as a child, the perpetrator was a scout leader, I never told anyone about it until I was 21 at which point I told my parents that I had been abused but no more details as I was unable to deal with it. At the age of 36 I realized that I needed to do something about it because it was destroying my life. I went to the police and for the first time ever I told the detective in great detail what had happened to me. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do.

During the course of the investigation it was revealed that the scout association not only knew who this person was and what he had done but failed to report it to the authorities. One report from the scouts advised that the boys were told to “remember their scout’s code of honour and never talk about it again”. As I told my parents at age 21 I was unable to legally hold the scouts accountable becuase I disclosed at 21. The following links shows that this organisation has done this more than once.

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3676171.htm
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/scouts-ignored-complaints-about-paedophile-20121016-27p4z.html
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sydney-news/sex-scandal-shames-scouts/story-e6freuzi-1111114413086

What do we want?

We request that the limitations act 1969 section 18a be amended to allow for victims of childhood sexual abuse the time required reporting the crime and seeking compensation from the organisations’ that cover up or hide perpetrators to protect their organisations’ name.