When the House of Representatives released 23,000 additional documents related to the convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein last week, and yesterday, when Congress voted to compel the Justice Department to release investigative files on the New York native, my thoughts immediately went to one woman in particular.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who died by suicide earlier this year, just months before the October publication of her book, Nobody’s Girl, A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, was among the fiercest survivors who broke the silence about Epstein’s sex trafficking ring. Her life shows how predators thrive when every institution meant to protect vulnerable people looks away. Her story exposes not just Epstein’s crimes, but the failures in our laws and systems that deny survivors justice.
Nobody’s Girl offers details of how Epstein and his chief procurer, Ghislaine Maxwell, trafficked countless girls and young women into his multi-million-dollar dens of sexual exploitation.
An attorney once asked Epstein how many women and girls he had abused since the 1990s. Epstein didn’t know, he said — maybe 1,000, maybe more?
We, too, will never know. Giuffre states that Epstein demanded sexual acts up to three times a day. If accurate, that would be 1,068 crimes of sexual assault a year, amounting to over 32,000 instances of rape in at least three decades of Epstein’s trafficking schemes, committed by Epstein alone. He also gifted young women and girls as sex toys to a stratospherically elite portfolio of men, who often tortured them.
Under U.S. federal and state anti-trafficking laws, unless a victim can prove force, fraud or coercion, prosecutors fail in building successful cases. This definition is painfully inadequate: traffickers use myriad other means to capture their prey, such as enticement, deception, abuse of power and abuse of vulnerabilities. Until our laws reflect this reality, exploiters will run free and survivors will be bereft of justice or peace.
Most of the known Epstein victims, including Giuffre, were vulnerable to sexual exploitation: neglected, or worse, by their families, ignored or abused by child protection services and dismissed by the squeaky wheels of justice. Feminist writer Andrea Dworkin believed that “the boot camp for prostitution” was incest. The pages of Giuffre’s journey are proof of that.
At the age of six, during bathtime, Giuffre’s father shredded the soul of an inquisitive little girl who relished books, farm life, and a beloved horse named Alice. Her book itemizes the unfathomable sexual abuse her father inflicted on her, including pimping Giuffre to his male friend.
Giuffre’s story is not just a catalogue of unspeakable sexual violence; it is also an account of a society that fails children. Giuffre’s pediatricians never inquired why a tiny girl had a broken hymen and chronic urinary tract infections. Her teachers never wondered why she became withdrawn and later acted out in a way that landed her in a horrific residential home. Throughout her childhood and into her teenage years, Giuffre outlines a cycle of brutal sexual assaults by classmates, exonerated by the argument of so-called consent, and by men who scouted runaway children to rape and sell into prostitution, eventually paving the pathway to Maxwell.
Recruited by Maxwell at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago spa, where she was a 16-year-old receptionist, Giuffre gleefully took the cajoling offer to train as a masseuse. This promise of a secure future turned into a global-scale hellscape. The high-profile names of men she was ordered to pleasure in luxury settings, from yachts to palaces, obscured the depth of her subjugation.
I spoke once to Giuffre in July 2020 on a video call, with another Epstein survivor, Teresa Helm. They were seeking support for their campaign demanding transparency and justice for the other Epstein and Maxwell victims. Her children playfully ran behind her as she outlined her strategy with steely determination, humor, and joy.
As Giuffre expounded Epstein’s roster of patronizers, from princes to presidents, captains of industry and renowned leaders in academia, philanthropy and finance, we surmised in unison why it was so difficult to enact and implement laws that bring justice to survivors and hold sex buyers and exploiters accountable. The climb was steep, we agreed, but we vowed to plough ahead as a global movement until each perpetrator is named and held accountable.
The brave decision by Giuffre and her survivor sisters to face down the most powerful members of our society bolsters the worldwide survivor-led movement invested in changing our culture – one which views prostitution as empowerment or a job like any other, thus condemning generations of marginalized women and girls, overwhelmingly of color, to lives of violence and desecration.
For years, Giuffre carried the unbearable weight of her scars into courtrooms and public squares, enduring unforgiving public scrutiny, not just for herself, but for countless other Epstein survivors silenced by fear.
That weight became too heavy for Giuffre to carry, but today, her legacy burns bright with proof that one survivor’s voice has the power to ensure that justice may at last be delivered.
Taina Bien-Aimé is the executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women.
