A new Iowa law eliminating the statute of limitations for certain sexual assault offenses against minors is one of several bills that passed this legislative session to help bring justice to sexual assault victims.

The law which took effect on May 12th covers crimes against children under the age of 18 including sexual abuse, incest, sexual exploitation and human trafficking. Rape Victim Advocacy Program Rural County Services Coordinator Deanna Hansen says this is a step in the right direction, as previously charges for those crimes typically couldn’t be issued after 10 or 15 years had passed since the victim turned 18, “It’s so important because delayed reporting is so common. It usually takes people years to come forward and talk about what happened and so now they have the chance to even as an adult if they decide, ‘Okay, I need to come forward, I need to talk about this, I need to report it. I want to be able to protect other people,’ whatever their reasoning may be, it gives them that chance to do so.”

Washington County Attorney John Gish says the recent legislative session had major wins for the Iowa County Attorneys Association, “We all recognize that our laws in Iowa could be better when it comes to sexual assault. So every one of the association’s priorities got signed into law this year which is pretty exciting. Really a credit to the legislature, a lot of these bills were either unanimous or nearly unanimous in getting passed. So I think that really speaks to how important each of these bills were.”

Other bills passed into law include Senate File 172 which relates to the definition of a sex act, House File 709 which relates to pretrial contact between a prosecuting witness who is a minor and the defendant, and Senate File 253, which allows prosecutors to charge a defendant with second degree sexual abuse if a victim is 12 or 13, which previously charged for only victims under the age of 12.