What Are Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs)?
Non-Disclosure Agreements, or NDAs, are contracts where one or more parties agree to keep certain information confidential. An NDA prevents a person who has signed it from discussing information included in the agreement with others. They are often used in business to protect trade secrets, client info, employment agreements, or legal settlements. An NDA can be mutual or one-sided, in which only one person is restricted from sharing information.
NDAs become ethically and legally controversial when used in the context of child sexual abuse (CSA). Survivors are often compelled to sign NDAs as part of settlement agreements. These agreements stop them from speaking about their abuse, the abuser, or the institution involved. In this way, NDAs perpetuate child sexual abuse. As Enough Abuse’s National Director of the Children’s Justice Campaign, Kathryn Robb explains in an op-ed for Verdict Justia, “[NDAs] reinforce the same message children first heard from their abusers: ‘don’t tell, it’s our little secret.’”
How Do NDAs Perpetuate Child Sexual Abuse?
In some cases of sexual abuse, institutions, such as schools, churches, or youth organizations, or individuals accused of abuse require victims or their families to sign NDAs as a condition for receiving a settlement. By silencing victims, NDAs suppress evidence and patterns of abuse, keeping communities unaware of ongoing risks.
Many high-profile celebrities accused of sexual assault have used NDAs to protect themselves. For example, former film producer Harvey Weinstein used NDAs extensively for decades to silence victims and maintain his power in the industry. Similarly, former U.S. women’s gymnastic doctor Larry Nassar allegedly used NDAs in settlements with survivors to prevent them from speaking out about the abuse and the institutional failures that enabled it. Clearly, the use of NDAs by individuals and organizations creates legal barriers to disclosure, hinders accountability, and allows abuse to continue.
NDAs Used to Silence Survivors
Perpetrators of child sexual abuse do not have to be high-profile celebrities or wealthy, powerful individuals to use NDAs. The advocacy group, Trey’s Law, points out that NDAs in CSA settlements are common in legal and insurance fields, calling them a “lawful form of ‘hush money.’” NDAs not only prevent justice for survivors; they also create barriers to healing, preventing survivors from sharing their stories and thus helping to protect others from unknowingly interacting with perpetrators of assault. All these factors contribute to how NDAs perpetuate child sexual abuse.
A 2024 study conducted by Stanford University’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research and by Lift Our Voices reveals how NDAs in general operate as powerful silencing mechanisms. The report, based on interviews with employees who signed NDAs after facing harassment or discrimination, found that agreements are often broad, confusing, and coercive and mainly protect employers, not individuals. Their inability to speak about the abuse left survivors feeling isolated. Some faced barriers in finding new jobs because of restrictive clauses in the agreements. The study concludes that NDAs foster a culture of secrecy that shields abusers, suppresses accountability, and inflicts lasting emotional and professional harm on survivors.
Trey Carlock’s Story
Trey Carlock was sexually abused during his childhood and teen years by Pete Newman, the long-time director at Kanakuk Kamps, a Christian summer camp in Missouri. Later in life, Trey sought legal recourse and filed a civil lawsuit against Kanakuk. He eventually settled, but the agreement required him to sign an NDA, silencing him from publicly speaking about his experience. Trey explained to his family that his inability to speak out made his recovery so much harder. Tragically, in 2019, at the age of 28, Trey died by suicide.
In response to this tragedy, Trey’s Law was founded by his family and now works for the elimination of NDAs in all child sexual abuse cases. This advocacy organization was successful in pushing for laws in Missouri and Texas that now eliminate NDAs.
How Do NDAs Negatively Impact Survivors?
Trey’s story illustrates the profound and often irreversible harm that NDAs inflict on survivors. They can trap them in emotional turmoil, stunt their healing and intensify feelings of shame, isolation, and self-blame – the same emotions already deeply embedded in their experience of child sexual abuse. For many survivors, NDAs represent a loss of control over their own story and bring back the power imbalance they faced during their abuse.
The inversion of priorities is at the heart of the ethical crisis surrounding NDAs in CSA cases, as NDAs function not as tools of protection for survivors but as shields for the individuals and institutions that enable abuse. They work to safeguard an organization’s reputation or an abuser’s public image while sacrificing the survivor’s psychological well-being. The broader societal consequences are equally alarming. By keeping survivors silent, NDAs ensure that warning signs remain hidden, patterns of behavior stay buried, and predators can continue to move through communities undetected. The enforced silence does not merely limit one survivor’s voice; it creates the conditions for future harm, perpetuating the abuse of more children.
Federal Reform Efforts
The Speak Out Act represents an important federal reform effort regarding NDAs and sexual abuse. It was signed into law by President Joe Biden on December 7, 2022, receiving bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate. The Act makes predispute nondisclosure and nondisparagement clauses judicially unenforceable when the dispute concerns sexual assault or sexual harassment. Essentially, the Act prevents courts from enforcing gag provisions relating to sexual assault and harassment if disputes arise. The Act aimed to reverse the ability for NDAs to silence survivors and shield wrongdoers. It empowered survivors by removing the legal threat of enforcement to speaking out.
However, the Act applies only to claims filed on or after December 7, 2022, meaning it does not apply retroactively. It also fails to cover or restrict nondisclosure or nondisparagement agreements related to sexual misconduct when they are entered into after a claim has already been filed. This means that if someone made an accusation of sexual assault or harassment and then signed an NDA, that NDA would still be enforceable. However, if they signed an NDA with the person or institution before making their accusation, the NDA won’t stop them from discussing the assault or harassment.
State-Level Reform Efforts
The Children’s Justice Campaign at Enough Abuse has worked in states alongside the Trey’s Law organization to advocate for the elimination of NDAs in CSA cases. For example, in 2025, Texas enacted Trey’s Law, or Senate Bill 835, which stops NDAs from silencing survivors moving forward and also applies retroactively to cancel NDAs that are currently operating. To date, only four other states, California, Tennessee, Alabama and Missouri, have passed laws prohibiting the use of NDAs in civil cases involving sexual assault survivors. This interactive map from Trey’s Law (the organization) tracks these laws as they are filed or introduced. Legislation is currently pending in five states.
In the summer of 2025, Missouri passed Senate Bill 81. This bill boosts protections for CSA victims and states that NDAs for CSA cases will not be enforceable after August 28, 2025. This law voids any current NDAs as well. California passed Assembly Bill No. 1682 in 2016 which bars the use of NDAs in settlement agreements involving felony sexual offenses, CSA, and sexual assaults against vulnerable adults. It also authorizes disciplinary measures against attorneys who employ such NDAs. The California law explicitly covers settlement agreements entered into on or after January 1, 2017, but does not apply retroactively to NDAs signed before that date. Tennessee House Bill 2523 was passed in 2018, invalidating NDAs in CSA claims and guaranteeing that any personal identifying information about CSA victims, including their status as victims, remains confidential.
These states represent rare exceptions in a national landscape where NDAs remain largely unregulated. These reforms mark an emerging recognition that NDAs, when used to conceal sexual violence, undermine public safety, shield perpetrators, and obstruct survivors’ access to justice.
NDA Reforms and Sexual Misconduct in the Workplace
Within the professional sphere, NDA regulation has also been initiated. 20 states have passed laws limiting the use of NDAs in dealing with sexual misconduct in the workplace, including: Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington. However, no state has completely banned non-disclosure provisions in a post-dispute context, meaning survivors’ voices may still be restricted after they file a lawsuit or press charges if they have signed an NDA. As a result, NDA reforms in the workplace still leave significant gaps in protections for employees seeking transparency and accountability. Employers have the responsibility to reassess any current policies or agreements that contain non-disclosure terms in order to protect survivors and prevent harm from occurring in a cyclical pattern.
What Can You Do?
While “Trey’s Law” has been passed in four states to abolish NDAs in CSA cases, there is more work to be done. Lawmakers, institutions, and communities must follow the lead set by these few states and eliminate practices that hide misconduct. We must strengthen protections for victims and insist on full transparency. By supporting the efforts of organizations such as Trey’s Law, or our advocacy efforts here at Enough Abuse, we can finally dismantle the culture of silence and move toward real accountability and safety for all children.
Federal Trey’s Law
On March 3, 2026, Senator Ted Cruz introduced the Terminating Restrictive Enforcement of Youth Settlements (TREY’S Law, S. 3966) in the U.S. Senate. The bipartisan bill is co-sponsored by Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Katie Boyd Britt, Eric Schmitt, and Peter Welch.
If enacted, TREY’S Law would prohibit the use of contractual provisions—most notably non-disclosure agreements (NDAs)—to suppress the disclosure of child sexual abuse. The legislation targets a longstanding practice in which perpetrators or institutions rely on private agreements to shield abusive conduct from public scrutiny. Under the bill, parties may still enter into settlement agreements that include confidentiality provisions regarding financial terms, such as payment amounts. However, any clause that restricts an individual from disclosing the underlying acts of sexual abuse against a minor, or facts relating to such abuse, would be unenforceable. This protection extends not only to survivors, but also to witnesses and others with knowledge of the abuse, ensuring they can speak freely without fear of civil liability.
TREY’S Law represents a significant federal effort to rebalance power between survivors and institutions by prioritizing transparency. By limiting the enforceability of NDAs in cases involving child sexual abuse, the bill seeks to dismantle a key mechanism that has historically enabled repeat abuse and institutional cover-ups. More broadly, it expands on a growing legislative trend toward survivor-centered reforms begun in many states, reinforcing the principle that confidentiality should not come at the expense of accountability or public safety.
Who We Are
ENOUGH ABUSE® is the nation’s oldest citizen-based child advocacy organization, with a 6-decade history of improving the lives of vulnerable children. We work in states, nationally, and with international partners to ensure every child’s right to a childhood free from abuse and exploitation.
For over two decades, our primary focus has been to prevent the sexual abuse of children in their homes, communities and online through our effective prevention trainings, education and advocacy.
The Children’s Justice Campaign at ENOUGH ABUSE® works across the country to reform and eliminate the civil and criminal SOLs for child sexual abuse. The Campaign’s strategies include statute of limitations (SOL) reform, eliminating charitable immunity for CSA, insurance reform, bankruptcy reform, and pushing for federal and state advisory boards to advocate for child safety and protection.