Decades-old California sex abuse lawsuits give survivors a chance at healing | Opinion

The cascade of recent lawsuits alleging sexual abuse of children throughout California has been sobering.

It also offers untold thousands of victims an opportunity for some healing, including many telling their heartbreaking stories for the first time — decades after they happened.

Teachers, scouting leaders, pastors and church volunteers, foster parents and coaches — the people we often pay and usually trust to lift and guide our children — are implicated by the score in these lawsuits, estimated at 1,000 in Northern California alone.

The crush of suits coincides with the recent closing of a three-year legal window established by Assembly Bill 218, a state law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019. Also called the California Child Victims Act, it offered a rare exception to the statutes of limitations that previously barred most people from seeking civil damages against organizations that harbored predators preying on some of the most vulnerable among us.

It’s staggering to consider that heinous acts against children were plotted or carried out in houses of faith. Scouting has long helped kids learn valuable skills and blossom into leaders. Schools are supposed to nurture as much as educate — not inflict emotional wounds that darken the lives of victims and their loved ones.

For too long, those who betrayed the public trust in the most despicable way have hidden behind statutes of limitations. In 2014, former Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed previous legislation that would have extended the statutes of limitations in some sexual abuse cases. In his veto message, Brown called it a matter of fairness for organizations that “should be secure in the reasonable expectation that past acts are indeed in the past and not subject to further lawsuits.”

Some will view the new torrent of lawsuits as unfair or unwise. It’s true that in many cases, perpetrators fled or died decades ago.

Why should an organization pay for the sins of those long gone? Is it unfair to respected institutions to pay judgments for acts perpetrated by people who are long gone? Some would even see financial opportunism in some of the lawsuits.

Some institutions, like the Boy Scouts and various Catholic dioceses, already have sought bankruptcy protection.

These questions and others are not automatically unreasonable, but the public won’t be certain until details of cases emerge.

It’s no secret now, after years of painful and sad public revelations, that it was once common for institutions to provide cover for abusers — reassigning to re-offend elsewhere while sometimes blaming, intimidating and even threatening the abused. We the general public must never allow such institutions to hide behind their good names again.

Sex abuse often remains in shadows

We know that victims typically don’t come forward immediately. More than half of survivors first disclosed their childhood abuse after the age of 50, according to CHILD USA, a group advocating for longer statutes of limitations, or even none.

Victims wait decades for many reasons including self-blame and failing to recognize abuse as criminal, according to research compiled by Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.

The “MeToo” movement taught us that more victims gain courage to come forward as they hear the voices and stories of other survivors.

Some plaintiffs in lawsuits have described relief at no longer internalizing the burden of lonely silence. Some have said it’s gratifying and empowering to see an actual legal document telling their truth, at long last, in black and white — regardless of final outcome.

AB 218 represents for survivors a concrete opportunity for validation, the possibility of healing and a fighting chance at finding peace. Society owes them that chance.