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Help the children. Not the molesters!

Please help us! We Cannot Speak For Ourselves

We, the children of the state of Washington, ask you to act on our behalf to help protect us from child molesters.Remember - to paraphrase - all it takes for evil to prevail is for good men and women to do nothing.

We are being denied equal protection under the law and the ability to seek equal justice because with the change in the federal statutes in 2003 if a sex crime is committed against us under federal law there is no limitation to the time the case can be prosecuted; however, if a sex crime is committed against us under state laws, after an artificially set time limit, we can no longer seek justice and identify the molester. This denies us equal protection, is unfair to us and does not serve as the deterrent it could to child molestation. In addition, you do not know which molesters living in our communities are sex offenders who could not be prosecuted because of this limitation and may molest again.

Click on the "Latest Information" link to obtain updates on this effort.

Please join in the effort to convince Washington state legislators that children are truly our most precious resources and are entitled to every protection we can give them against child molestation. The criminal statutes of limitation that now apply to the sexual molestation of children under the age of 18 should be eliminated.

Why should sex crimes committed against children under the age of 18 be subject to an artificial time period called a statute of limitations so after the passage of that time there can be no prosecution of the crime? That does not happen under federal laws. The victim lives with the effects of the abuse for the rest of their lives. Why do we reward the molester just because the abuse was not immediately discovered and brought to the attention of law enforcement authorities, or the victim was too afraid or ashamed to come forward and may not be able to for several years? After all, the victims were children.

There is no statute of limitations in homicide cases. Because we think homicide is such a serious crime affecting society, a prosecution can occur at any time after the act when there is sufficient credible evidence to bring charges against the person believed to be responsible. Do we think enough of our children to apply the same rule to the sexual molestations of them? Do we think the child should have to die in order for there to be responsibility for the criminal act at any later time?

We ask you to urge the Governor and state legislators to change the law in order to eliminate the criminal statutes of limitations for sex crimes committed against children under the age of 18 and bring our laws in line with federal law. The burden to safeguard children falls squarely on us to convince our representatives. Please contact them to urge the passage of this change in the law.

To see how you can become involved click on the "How You Can Help" link.