PENNSYLVANIA
The Legal Intelligencer

Daniel F. Monahan, The Legal Intelligencer
April 14, 2015

Survivors of childhood sexual abuse often lead lives in silence, secrecy and shame. Not only do they suffer from the traumatic effects of sexual abuse, which often causes depression, post-traumatic stress and addiction issues, but the fear of exposing that secret creates its own hosts of problems.

One of the more significant obstacles to recovery is survivors’ reluctance to report the abuse to criminal authorities or pursue civil remedies against the perpetrators and the institutions that protect them. In my practice, I have spoken with dozens of survivors who either could not reveal their secrets or did not recognize the significant harms that the abuse inflicted until years, and sometimes decades, after the abuse occurred.

Although there are serious questions of when the statute of limitations should be imposed with respect to these cases, that…