If the #MeToo movement of the last few months has taught us anything, it’s that it is extremely painful and risky for victims of sexual harassment or assault — even those with power, money and connections — to speak out against their abusers. Now consider how much harder it must be for a child.
It should surprise no one that a vast majority of people who were sexually abused as children never report it. For those who do, it takes years, and often decades, to recognize what happened to them, realize it wasn’t their fault and tell someone. The trauma leads to higher rates of alcoholism and drug abuse, depression, suicide and other physical and psychological problems that cost millions or billions to treat — money that should be paid not by taxpayers, but by the offenders and the institutions that cover for them.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/opinion/albany-child-victims-act.html?emc=edit_tnt_20180111&nlid=63876270&tntemail0=y
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/opinion/albany-child-victims-act.html?emc=edit_tnt_20180111&nlid=63876270&tntemail0=y
