Child abuse survivors and campaigners are renewing their demands to abolish time limits for reporting child abuse, calling the current laws restrictive and unjust.

A survivor of child abuse, Carmen Muscat, and the Commissioner for Children, Antoinette Vassallo, want an end to the legal prescription period for such crimes.

The law imposes a 15-year prescription period for reporting sexual abuse against minors. This time frame begins when victims turn 23, meaning they must initiate legal action by their 38th birthday.

“It can take many years for victims of child abuse to pluck up the courage to file a report against their abusers,” said Vassallo. “This is especially the case if the latter were part of their circle of trust. The office calls for prescription to be removed from cases of child abuse.”

Recent data issued by Eurostat back up the need to remove time-barring as they show the low reporting rate by women who were abused in their childhood.

The Eurostat figures showed that Malta has the highest overall rate of reporting domestic and gender-based violence in the EU: 76% of women who experienced abuse reported it unofficially, such as by telling a friend or colleague. Just under half, 48.2%, of women filed official reports to a health or social service, support service or the police.

However, the figures were very different when it came to women who experienced sexual abuse during childhood: 63.6% per cent reported the abuse to someone. But, in the case of the vast majority – 62.9%, the report was unofficial.

‘I lived it’

Muscat knows why this happens because she lived it.

“When a child is living in an abusive environment, they lose track of what is good or bad. Then, when they realise, they wish to talk but, at the same time, might not have the courage to speak up,” she said.

She is one of two women who have taken the fight to remove time-barring to court.

She and Rosanne Saliba said they were abused by nuns at Lourdes Home orphanage in Gozo where they lived in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Carmen as a child.

In their court case, the two women are claiming that the State failed to protect them and are seeking compensation for their ordeal.

Abuse at the Għajnsielem home is alleged to have stretched for decades. The Church first acknowledged it in 1999, when it set up a commission that concluded the allegations were unfounded.

Claims then came to public attention in 2006, when survivors, ranging in age from their 20s to 40s, described horrific abuse on the TV show Bondi+.

In 2008, a second Church commission found evidence of “inadmissible behaviour involving minors” at the home.

The Gozo bishop at the time, Mario Grech, issued a statement asking survivors for forgiveness and ordered that the commission’s recommendations be implemented.

However, the police could not arraign anyone as the case was time-barred.

“There should not be a limit to the age when a victim can talk. Let’s not forget that a victim of abuse is scared and does not know who to trust. For a long time, they remain under the control of their abuser and, even if that is over, there is fear and a range of issues such as not wanting to revisit that horrible time,” Muscat said.