Search Results: victim of abuse

I'm pretty sure most people are either aware of Kavanaugh. It was not proved one way or the other if he sexually assaulted Dr. Ford.
So now, people are saying it must be a false rape accusation, even though that wasn't concluded either.

So my admittedly cynical question is, should sexual abuse victims even come forward years or even decades after the abuse happened?
Sexual assault is very hard to prove, but it's even harder when so much time has passed. Although yes, in the eyes of the law, everyone should be innocent until proven guilty, I'm not arguing against that at all. But some people seem to think just because a rape wasn't or can't be proved, that the accuser must be making false allegations. Which is not true, again, rape is hard to prove. People jump to conclusions on all sides. And no, I'm not defending false accusers, they are horrible and demean true rape victims and make it harder to seek justice.

If you've experienced sexual abuse, it's hard to come forward during, but it gets harder with each passing year because not only is it harder to prove, but now more than ever, people will think you're lying. You have to go through the experience again in your mind to try to prove that the abuse took place. in my opinion, and maybe I'm very selfish, but I'd rather not come forward years later because the likelihood of me proving it and them getting convicted is low. I do applaud and commend those who do come forward years after, because it's extremely difficult to relive that and try to get justice. But maybe I'm just a coward because I would never want to, unless I knew I could prove it.

In case y'all are wondering why so many don't, a few reasons- threatened, talked out of it, gaslighted, they did but weren't believed, too young to comprehend it, ashamed, scared, blamed themselves and want to forget etc.

TLDR: should sexual abuse victims come forward years after the abuse? Should they only if they have enough proof?