Albany, NY – On the last day of the 2018 Legislative Session, Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (D/WF-Manhattan), sponsor of the Child Victims Act (A.5885-A), which passed the Assembly by wide margins last year and again this year, released the following statement about the New York State Senate’s refusal to allow a vote on the legislation:

“Time may have temporarily run out on the Child Victims Act this session, but time is up for the Senate Majority who has stood in the way of justice for New York’s children. More than 90% of New Yorkers, regardless of political party, support the Child Victims Act, which would provide the only form of justice we can to survivors of childhood sexual abuse and make New York safer for all families.

Instead of standing with the innocent children and their families, the State Senate Majority has sided with pedophiles that prey on our children and the institutions that have knowingly and negligently harbored them.

The only people more repulsive than those who harm children are the cowards who defend them. New York State Senate Majority has prioritized special interests over the lives of children destroyed by abuse and begging for remedy. As the last few weeks have made crystal clear for federal-level Majority, the public has a zero tolerance policy for using children as pawns in a political game. Now that the legislative process is over, I look forward to seeing the will of the voters carried out via the electoral process.

I have been awed by the courage of the survivors who have advocated for years to see the Child Victims Act become law, and I vow to stand with them until adult survivors of childhood abuse in this state see the justice they have for too long been denied.”