AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times
Jorge Branco
Early moves toward scrapping a time limit that prevents thousands of child sex abuse victims suing for damages have been welcomed by an organisation that regularly sees the “huge” impact the laws have.
The Queensland government has promised to convene a forum to develop the state’s response to the findings of the child sex abuse Royal Commission.
Key among those was a call for all states and territories to remove any time limits on civil litigation claims from sex abuse survivors, which it labelled a “significant, sometimes insurmountable barrier”.
The statute of limitations in Queensland expires three years after a victim turns 18 but the Royal Commission found it takes the average survivor 22 years to disclose their abuse.
New South Wales scrapped the time limit earlier this month and Victoria did the same last year.
On Wednesday, Queensland Child Safety Minister Shannon Fentiman announced the government would hold a forum to address the findings “soon”.
She also promised “common guiding principles” setting out “a compassionate and consistent approach to civil litigation brought against the state by claimants who were sexually abused as children.”
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