Whether female or male, when a child is sexually abused by an adult, chances are slim that they will report it to someone right away, and it ends up being a traumatic experience that they live with for the rest of their lives.
According to RAINN, The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, every nine minutes a child is sexually assaulted in America. And, only five out of every one thousand of those abusers end up being incarcerated, mostly because of the fear, intimidation, guilt, and other feelings the child victims harbor after these horrific incidents.
Child victims act attorneys are there to represent those child sexual abuse survivors who are now adults and have been suffering in silence for so many years.
What If the Child Molester Dies Before They Are Prosecuted?
As aforementioned, a person will many times wait until well into their adulthood before they tell anyone that they were sexually abused as a minor. And, sometimes by the time a victim brings the incident to a child victims act attorney, the perpetrator has already passed away.
The victim may feel at this point that there is nothing they can do now that their abuser is dead. But, in actuality, the person who abused them may not be the only party guilty in their civil case, and damages can still be brought up against an institution.
Sadly, any establishment that deals with lots of children is a target for child predators, and at any given time at least a small amount of child sexual abuse is probably going on behind closed doors. Some examples of these places are institutions such as the Catholic Church, youth center organizations, and public and private schools.
If the abuser has died, it will be the job of your trusted Child Victims Act Attorney to prove negligence on the part of the institution. When they show in court that the institution either tried to protect the abuser or ignored the fact that the child was being sexually abused, damages will be collected from that organization.
Your attorney understands that a large percentage of child sexual abusers are people that the child knows, whether they are a family member or someone the child is regularly in contact with. The Child Victims Act ensures that much more time is given for the survivor to report a past incident.
The Type of Child Victims Act Attorney You Need
A passionate attorney who truly understands your personal “triggers” is who you want to represent you in your civil case. This type of caring lawyer realizes that even hearing about the helpful, reassuring legal changes to the Child Victims Act on television and online is a trigger because the victim has ignored the incident for years and the survivor is likely suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome.
Therefore, an experienced child sex abuse case counselor will be ready for that initial consultation phone call from an adult who was abused as a child, because the call itself will also be a trigger, and the attorney should be ready to be emotionally supportive in any way possible.