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Brave Movement
Resources

Justice without borders

PDF report titled Justice Without Borders, developed by CHILD Global and the Brave Movement. The cover shows the statue of Lady Justice holding scales against a blue background with yellow EU stars, representing justice and reform across Europe. The report discusses changes to the criminal statute of limitations for child sexual abuse across the European Union, authored by Dr. Matthew McVarish, Professor Marci Hamilton, and Dr. Miguel Hurtado.

Child sexual abuse remains a devastating epidemic affecting 1 in 5 children across the EU. Extensive research indicates that survivors endure trauma that is often chronic, profound, and uniquely damaging with lifelong impact compared to other crimes. With the average age of disclosure at 52, many survivors are barred from seeking justice due to statutes of limitations expiring long before they are able to come forward. This new report from the Brave Movement and Child Global acts as a rallying call for the EU to act now to end the Statues of Limitations on child sexual abuse crimes.

Justice without borders (English)

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Justica sin fronteras (Español)

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Justice sans frontiers (Français)

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Justice unleashed cover
Resource

Justice unleashed: Ending limitations, protecting children

With this report, we showcase why the criminal statutes of limitation for child sexual abuse crimes should be abolished across all member states of the Council of Europe. It recommends amending the Lanzarote Convention to include an Optional Protocol to achieve this goal.

EU SOLs blog
Blog

Standing with survivors: My call to strengthen EU child protection laws

Imagine being the victim of a crime so traumatising it takes you years, even decades, to be able to tell anyone about it. Then imagine that when you are finally able to do so, nothing can be done. You are told it is too late for justice.

June 17, 2025

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girl standing alone
Blog

Time for justice - why Europe must unite to make sure child sex abusers never escape

A statute of limitation in relation to childhood sexual violence defines the maximum amount of time a victim can wait before starting legal proceedings against the perpetrators. Setting this limit for survivors of childhood sexual abuse is harmful as it means that many do not recieve justice if they can’t speak up within the imposed deadline, which is usually an arbitrary amount of time. Governments retaining these harmful statutes of limitation for survivors of childhood sexual abuse is not only deeply unfair to victims but dangerous for future generations and extremely costly for society. For these reasons it's not surprising that the complete elimination of statutes of limitations in relation to childhood sexual violence of is one of the highest priorities of the global survivor movement. Unfortunately for them, evidence obtained from countries that have no statutes of limitations in relation to childhood sexual violence disprove that claim. There are some types of evidence that survive the passage of time such as a criminals' confessions, DNA, child sex abuse material, the internal archives of institutions that have shielded abusers (i.e. catholic church, boy scouts) or multiple victims who describe the same modus operandi committed by a common perpetrator. The European commission and the European Parliament want to change this outrageous situation by including a legally binding common standard on the new directive against child sexual abuse. On Tuesday 17th of June, the European Parliament will vote their proposal to establish in the new directive that there should be no criminal or civil statute of limitations in child sexual abuse cases.

June 4, 2025

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News

Child Global and Brave Movement call for the European Union to end legal loopholes allowing child abusers to escape punishment

Last chance for a generation of European child abuse survivors to get justice

News

Overwhelming vote by MEPs to end time limits on prosecuting child abusers is a major step towards keeping children safe

An overwhelming vote by the European Parliament in favour of ending time limits for the prosecution of child abusers has been welcomed by leading children’s rights organisations as a major step towards keeping children safe.

国旗と欧州連合の旗が掲げられているガラスの建物の外観。国旗の色合いは青、赤、白の3色で構成されている。EU旗の星の形も特徴的だ。
News

EU steps closer to ending statutes of limitations for child sexual abuse crimes: Brave Movement statement on the EU Committee LIBE vote

The Brave Movement welcomes the first-ever vote by MEPs in favour of abolishing time limits in all EU countries for the prosecution of child-sex offenders.

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