BOSTON – Sen. Joan B. Lovely presided over the Briefing on Preventing Child Sexual Abuse at the State House Thursday, pushing for legislative proposals to help ensure the protection of children and survivors of abuse in Massachusetts.
District Attorney for Berkshire County, Timothy J. Shugrue, promoted Bill 1634, relative to sexual assaults by adults in positions of authority or trust; a bill that already exists in 80% of states nationwide.
It would act to close what is currently a legal “loophole” for sexual assault in Massachusetts.
“We are unknowingly legalizing sexual assault as a law currently stands, that’s what it is, legal sexual assault,” Shugrue said. “This is our moment to right that wrong.”
Under current Massachusetts legislation, it is considered that a person sixteen years of age or older is legally capable of ‘consenting’ to sexual intercourse; a law that enables perpetrators to exploit the age of consent loophole on minors ages 16 to 18.
“This is not acceptable,” Shugrue said. “Without a law, we legalize exploitation.”
Attorney and National Director of the Children’s Justice Campaign at Enough Abuse, Kathryn Robb, shared her organization’s recent statistics.
One in four girls and one in thirteen boys reported having been sexually assaulted before age 18. But many cases are suspected to go unreported.
Erin Laffond took the stand to testify publicly as a survivor.
“Between the ages of 14 and 17, I was groomed and sexually abused by a man who was like a father figure,” she said. “He emotionally and psychologically manipulated me by using his position as a recognized member of the community to disguise his actions, to keep me quiet.”
Erin grew up learning to trust and confide in adults around her. She pleaded with lawmakers to pass protections.
“Adults are the people you’re supposed to trust the most,” she said. “I wasn’t a woman then, I was a child.”
“If that’s not an epidemic, I don’t know what the hell it is,” Robb said.
The Massachusetts statute of limitations, which sets the time limit for filing a lawsuit, she explained, still applies to civil claims pertaining to child sexual abuse.
In the bounds of the current legislation, a survivor has until age 53 to file a lawsuit, after which they cannot name their perpetrator.
“Why should perpetrators and bad acting institutions benefit from the passage of time while victims suffer in perpetuity?” Robb said. “It is absolutely archaic; it needs to change.”
She suggests revival legislation, windows allowing survivors of abuse to file civil lawsuits even if the original statute of limitations has expired.
Her son, Jesse, raised in Lexington, Massachusetts, was taken to a Boston hospital basement and raped by a doctor at 8 years old.
He is now 32.
“My son cannot name his perpetrator nor the institution because of the statute of limitations,” Rob said. “It is time for this legislature to act and pass all of these bills to protect the children of the Commonwealth of MA. I’m tired of being here.”
Jetta Bernier, Executive Director of Enough Abuse, cited specific cases occurring in schools across the state since the beginning of 2025.
All of them could have been prevented, she said, had abuses been stopped at school doors.
Should child sexual abuse prevention bills pass, they would require education in schools, screening of applicants to identify previous sexual misconduct, and criminalization of sexual abuse by school employees, which remain, today, cases seeping through the “age of consent loophole.”
“I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore,” Bernier said.
This is a critical problem that must be addressed immediately, so that “when those kids go back in September, they are truly protected for the first time.”
