NEW YORK
National Catholic Reporter
Jamie Manson | Apr. 22, 2015
While many folks around the world marked April 22 as Earth Day, in Albany, N.Y., State Assemblywoman Margaret M. Markey used the occasion to host a Lobby Day to promote awareness of child sexual abuse.
Across the country, April is known as National Child Abuse Prevention Month. Markey and sixty other assemblymembers have called on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to extend the proclamation to New York state, which ranks among the worst for the way in which it deals with victims of child sexual abuse crimes, according to a survey by Professor Marci Hamilton of Cardozo Law School.
Unlike some states that have either no statute of limitation or an extended statute of limitation, in New York, victims must bring criminal or civil charges against their abusers within five years of their 18th birthday.
For years, Markey has sponsored the Child Victims Act, a bill that would “reform New York’s archaic criminal and civil statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse crimes,” according to a press release from Markey’s office.
“The Child Victims Act calls for the total elimination of the criminal and civil statute of limitations for child sexual abuse crimes in the future, with a complete one year suspension of the civil SOL to benefit older victims,” the release also states. More than one-third of the members of the State Assembly have joined Markey to co-sponsor the bill.
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