The following is a story from Hilda O. a survivor from New York who is working to shed light on how the statute of limitations affects victims of child abuse. With the passage of the Child Victims Act and its affiliated “Lookback Window”, barriers were temporarily removed for survivors to seek justice and heal on their own terms. Hilda is one of those survivors.
Content Awareness:
This content explicitly mentions rape and may be difficult for some to read.
My name is Hilda Onley. I’m 81 years old. I’m a survivor. I’m determined and resilient.
I was sent to the New York State Training School for Girls when I was fifteen years old. Not because I was a bad girl. I was sent there because I ran away from my abusive home. I was there until I was seventeen years old. The Training School was a state-run reformatory for “incorrigible” girls, open from 1904 to 1975.
That was a scary time for me because while I was there, I was regularly sexually abused by my House Father. I was also physically abused by my House Mother. Those traumatic things have had a huge impact on my life to this day. I still live in fear and suffer physically and emotionally.
The “system” did not care about me at all. That’s why I’ve always been a fighter. I had to be.
I didn’t speak to a social worker until I was 17 when I was leaving the Training School. They said, “You’re going to a foster home.” And that was the first time I had ever seen a social worker, even though I was being molested and being beaten at the school. And I had been abused in my home since I was 8 years old. No one tried to help me until I was 17.
Somehow, despite all of the pain I had to go through as a child, I beat the odds. I never did drugs or got sent to jail after the Training School. Some children can beat the odds. But some children can’t. Some turn to drugs to ease the pain of what they suffered from when they were young. They have problems as adults, they do bad things because of it. It’s hard for all of us.
You have to be interested in the welfare of the children. You have to ask: are they happy? Are they nervous and biting their nails? You can tell if a child is happy. You have to look into their eyes. You can tell a lot by looking into children’s eyes. I was a foster mother. I fostered five kids and I had kids of my own, and I loved them all. I know. We need homes and people that really care about kids.
We also need for survivors to be able to report what happened to them without the fear of time running out before they’re ready to speak. Or having to wait 60 years, like I did, to be able to tell your truth. I was terrified when it was happening – I know it was happening to other girls – but I was too afraid to say anything. I was afraid I might get killed.
It wasn’t until New York passed the Child Victims Act Lookback window in 2019 that I was able to begin to seek justice. Other states have had Lookback windows that extend the statute of limitations for reporting childhood sex abuse.
In truth these statutes only serve to protect the perpetrators of abuse. We need to end them. Today only Vermont has done this. I hope one day that this will be the case for every state.
I always thank God that he made me strong enough to survive what I went through and that he gave me enough belief to stand up for myself now.
— Hilda Onley
Hilda is the central character in an upcoming short documentary: Hilda O. vs. The State of New York by Alison Cornyn and Heather Greer. This film follows Hilda in her fight for justice and will serve as an advocacy vehicle to support abolishing the statutes of limitation for child sex abuse.