What is the Statute of Limitations on Reporting Peer on Peer Sexual Abuse

My question involves child sexual abuse in the State of: Illinois

I wasn't sure if this should be under this forum, or criminal law. Please let me know if I should post elsewhere. Thank you.

My daughter recently told me that at the age of 6 she was sexually abused by a (girl) friend who was 1-2 years older than her. At the time she had told me some of what happened, and It sounded like they were playing doctor. I made sure that they were never along together again, and rather quickly, this girl lost interest in having my daughter as a friend.

Fast forward to 13-14 years old and my daughter got sick with an eating disorder. During intense therapy the abuse didn't come up. Then my daughter was 15-16 years old, she wanted to see the doctor about anxiety. We went to a psychiatrist and he spoke to her privately, and ended up prescribing Zoloft. This was on a school day. During that day she had an anxiety attack and came home shaking and crying. This is when she told me what had really happen, and it was a lot more than I could have imagined. I immediately got her into therapy. My daughter still hasn't told the therapist what happened, and finds it difficult to tell me (again) what exactly happened. We (my daughter, the therapist and I) decided to wait to report anything until my daughter could talk about it and would me traumatized by being interviewed by DCFS. A year later the therapist does not know the name of the abuser, so she cannot report her.

My question is, can we still report her, and/or press charges. My daughter is 17, and the other girl is probably 18 or 19. My daughter doesn't want to, or doesn't feel ready, but I am concerned about how she would feel later, and I worry that this girl could still be out there abusing others.

You can report it, but if your daughter isn't prepared to say what happened there's not a whole lot you can do.

Any statute of limitations doesn't begin to tick until she's 18. There's still quite some time, and you can take a look here http://www.icasa.org/docs/statute%20...imitations.pdf.

I wish you all the best of luck.

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Quoting Dogmatique

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You can report it, but if your daughter isn't prepared to say what happened there's not a whole lot you can do.

Any statute of limitations doesn't begin to tick until she's 18. There's still quite some time, and you can take a look here http://www.icasa.org/docs/statute%20...imitations.pdf.

I wish you all the best of luck.

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I agree, but at the same time, if your daughter was 6 years old when this happened, then the other girl was 7 or 8. I have some fairly serious doubts that a 7 or 8 year old would have been prosecuted for sexual abuse. That is too young to be aware of the nature of their acts.

A 7- or 8-year-old could not be criminally prosecuted for an act of sexual abuse, because Illinois sets the age of criminal responsibility at 13 years. A younger child would be subject to juvenile court proceedings.

If you know the name of the abuser, you can pass that information on to the psychologist, but to the extent that any investigation followed it would be unlikely that it would get anywhere unless your daughter is able to cooperate with the investigation.

Oh for the love of...

Yeah. I misread the age. Sorry.