NJ a Safe Haven for Sexual Predators until Legislation Passes | Opinion

By Mai Fernandez
NJ.com
December 11, 2015

http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/12/nj_a_safe_haven_for_sexual_predators_until_legisla.html

Sign in a Child Advocacy Center that deals with the victims of sexual abuse. (Star-Ledger file photo)

The critically acclaimed movie "Spotlight," currently in theaters, is a compelling real life look at the cover up of heinous acts by priests against children in Massachusetts that was unearthed by the Boston Globe. It is a powerful story about the active efforts to hide the truth as well as the harm done to innocent victims. It is time that the spotlight be put on New Jersey.

Mai Fernandez, above, is executive director of the National Center for Victims of Crime and from New Jersey.

New Jersey is no exception to these horrors and, what is worse, it does little to protect the victims. In fact, the state is ranked in the bottom half of the country in safeguarding children from sexual abuse and letting molesters off the hook, according to an analysis of all 50 states by SOL-Reform.com.

According to data from the Crimes Against Children Research Center, one in five girls and one in 20 boys are sexually abused before the age of 18. In more than half those cases, a trusted person, such as a family member, a coach or a scoutmaster, abused the child. Despite the prevalence, up to 90 percent of the cases are never reported.

We must do better to protect our most innocent of victims. Yet the State Senate refuses to act on bipartisan legislation introduced by Senator Joe Vitale, a Middlesex County Democrat, who is trying to bring decency and good sense to our state.

Institutions that enable sexual predators have been lobbying tenaciously to prevent the bill's passage as they successfully did in 2012. They seek to avoid responsibility for failing to protect the children placed in their care. How is it that a bill intended to serve such vulnerable and innocent victims is so obviously being stalled?

It often takes years or even decades for victims to acknowledge, let alone discuss, their horrifying experience. Victims of childhood sexual abuse tend to suppress awareness of the abuse; they have a hard time connecting their dysfunction as adults to the abuse they suffered as children; and when they finally realize the connection, they have to gather the courage to act. Unfortunately, at that point, New Jersey law puts the burden on them by requiring that they prove why they didn't sue earlier.

The ability to pursue civil damages against an abuser and the abuser's organization is about justice, healing, prevention and closure. Not all sexual abuse crimes are criminally prosecuted (most older ones are not), and thus a civil suit may be a victim's only means of obtaining justice. Moreover, a civil suit protects all children by holding institutions accountable for safeguarding the children placed in their care.

Victims suffer injustice hiding in the shadows and this crime breeds in secrecy. Justice demands that we pull these negotiations out of the shadows and have a full, fair public debate. It is time the Vitale legislation is posted for a yes or no vote and our Senate leadership is held accountable. Victims deserve a vote.