A postcode lottery across the European Union (EU) is allowing child abusers to escape punishment and denying justice to survivors, a new report has revealed. Wide variations in law across EU states in time limits for prosecutions mean many abusers never face the force of the law.  The report is released amid the EU process to reform Article 16 of the recast Directive (2011/93/EU) to abolish the criminal and civil statute of limitations for all child sex abuse offences.

Child sexual abuse (CSA) remains a devastating epidemic affecting 1 in 5 children across the EU. Extensive research indicates that survivors of CSA 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 (SOLs) expiring long before they are able to come forward.

A new report from the Brave Movement and Child Global – Justice without borders: Access to justice should not be a postcode lottery – unveils an easy-to-read snapshot of each EU member state’s criminal SOL ranking. The grading provides a stark illustration that European law, as it stands, means that access to justice for CSA survivors across the EU remains uncertain. The report acts as a rallying call for the EU to act now to end the SOLs on child sexual abuse crimes. 

When SOLs prevent prosecution, abusers evade punishment, remain off sex offender registries, and continue to pose risks—especially as many have exploited this legal loophole, allowing them to avoid criminal background checks and have direct access to children despite having a history of serially abusing multiple victims, sometimes over decades. Institutions like the Catholic Church have been documented transporting European offenders (who cannot be prosecuted in their home country because the limitation period has run out) to developing countries with weak or non-existent child protection laws, where they continue to prey on vulnerable children.

A call for urgent reform

Professor Marci A. Hamilton, Founder & Chief Visionary Officer, CHILD Global says:

“CHILD Global is proud to stand with the Brave Movement and these brave survivors to demand justice for child sex abuse victims.  Without access to justice, the survivors are sent a message that they don’t matter, and the public is deprived of learning the truth about pervasive child sex abuse.  Abolition of the statutes of limitation would make EU member states global leaders in child protection.”

Miguel Angel Hurtado Calvo, Brave Movement advocate and report co-author, says:

“The legal net cannot close around abusers when there are so many holes in it. If we do not address this now, we may lose the chance to give justice to survivors for another generation. We urge the EU to lead decisive reform to abolish or significantly extend the SOLs for CSA crimes across all member states. At a minimum, the updated EU Directive should establish that the limitation period does not expire before survivors reach age fifty-three, aligning with the average age of disclosure and ensuring survivors have a real opportunity to seek justice.”

Why this matters.

• Justice delayed is justice denied: Short SOLs hinder prosecution, allowing serial abusers to evade accountability and perpetuate harm.
• A patchwork of laws: Within the EU, access to justice varies dramatically—some countries have abolished SOLs for CSA offences, while others retain extremely restrictive statutes, creating a “postcode lottery.”
• EU-wide safeguards need to be relocated from a country with lenient SOL to a country with strict SOL laws, endangering children in the entire EU.

A united EU response
Addressing this issue requires an EU-wide approach. The recent unanimous political consensus among all 27 EU countries at the Lanzarote Committee to issue an opinion that calls for the abolition or significant expansion of SOLs demonstrates a shared recognition of the urgency. Member states now have well-established legal tools to implement these reforms, whether through suspending the initiation of the limitation period until the victim reaches a certain age (as Germany and Spain have done), establishing a minimum age cap before which SOLs cannot run out (as Poland has done), or doubling/tripling normal limitation periods in CSA offences (as Italy or Slovenia have done).

A step towards excellence
The current draft EU Directive, while a positive step, must go further, aiming for the complete abolition of criminal and civil SOLs for CSA offences or, at the very least, setting the limitation period to last until survivors reach age 53. This aligns with scientific evidence, including the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study, which links long-term harm with the cumulative trauma of multiple adverse childhood experiences (i.e. child sex abuse, physical abuse, parental mental illness or substance misuse), regardless of the severity of each ACE, such as child sex abuse, individually.

A moral and legal imperative
We call on EU decision-makers to:

• Abolish criminal and civil SOLs for all CSA offences across member states.
• Establish a minimum limitation period until survivors reach age 53.
• Ensure that survivors are not unjustly denied justice due to arbitrary legal deadlines.
• Recognize that justice delayed is justice denied—particularly for child victims whose trauma persists well into adulthood.

Protecting children and enabling access to justice for survivors must be a priority for the EU. This is not just a legal issue; it is a moral obligation to the vulnerable children of today and future generations.