Star Advertiser: Toughen laws against child-sex predators

HAWAII
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on March 27, 2014

From the editorial in today’s Honolulu Star-Advertiser:

Children who are raped, sodomized and otherwise sexually abused must cope with the emotional and physical pain of these heinous acts for the rest of their lives. Just as there is no statute of limitations on the trauma they suffer, there should be no statute of limitations on bringing to justice the criminals who inflict this terror on Hawaii’s most vulnerable victims.

So we applaud the Hawaii Legislative Women’s Caucus’ continuing efforts to make it more difficult for pedophilic predators to get away with sex crimes against minors, and to hold accountable private employers and institutions that are proven culpable in the abuse. However, extending the window to file civil lawsuits in limited instances of past abuse, as bills pending in the Legislature seek to do, strikes us as a relatively minor response.

This important issue deserves a broader approach, especially in the Internet age, when the money to be made producing online child pornography for a sick global market heightens an insidious profit motive for criminals already inclined to exploit minors in this way.

It’s fair to say that American society has had its consciousness raised about childhood sexual abuse over the past several decades, as an abuse scandal engulfed the Roman Catholic Church. Other religious, educational and recreational organizations entrusted with children’s welfare also were found to have harbored predators in their ranks. Unthinkable crimes were uncovered and victims were finally heard, many after decades of silence. Yet, quite often, perpetrators escaped punishment, because the statute of limitations on the crimes had expired.

One legitimate response, including in Hawaii, has been to temporarily lift that time limit, although here that provision is limited to the filing of civil lawsuits, and only against the individuals directly involved and associated private entities proven negligent and therefore partly responsible. The state and its agencies are exempt, a glaring hypocrisy given that compulsory public schools, for just one example, also risk employing sexual predators.

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