“There is nothing unique about Epstein or his crimes”

Content warning: This blog post discusses human trafficking and the commercial sexual exploitation of children.

Untangling the conspiracy theories and daily breaking news about Jeffrey Epstein is complicated. What is not complicated is understanding, at its core, there is nothing unique about Epstein or his crimes. The calculated and systematic nature of how he raped hundreds of girls is exactly how the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) operates: in plain sight with individuals in power helping perpetuate its harms.

These insidious dynamics are neither new nor novel; they are how perpetrators have always exploited the vulnerable and voiceless. Epstein insulated himself by having others—usually women like his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell and victims—recruit girls for him; he used a plea bargain, which is a tactic many sex traffickers and buyers utilize to evade prosecution for child sex trafficking, resulting in low child sex trafficking conviction rates. He is a predator prototype.

So while Epstein’s actions are not unique, what is unique is how this prototypical CSEC case has been politically weaponized. Historically, CSEC has been a bipartisan issue, as evidenced by the plethora of Republican- and Democrat-backed federal and state statutes addressing CSEC issues, including increasing jail time for child sex traffickers and providing trafficking-specific victim services.

So how did we get to the point where CSEC is fueling our country’s deeply-rooted political divide? One side has molded their political identities around the belief that a “deep state” controls a pedophile ring, while the other is entrenched in a guilt-by-association assertion that Epstein’s high-profile friends were either involved in or enabled his crimes.

One thing we can all agree on in America, on all sides of the political spectrum, is that anyone who traffics and/or rapes a child deserves to be punished to the fullest extent of the law. We can also agree that we need to do more to stop people like Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell before more children are harmed. Epstein, Maxwell, and their clientele were able to use privilege and power to escape accountability for their crimes. Less than ten percent of reported child sexual abuse cases result in a perpetrator conviction or guilty plea.

We must end this political divide, and the attendant wealth and power of Epstein’s ilk must not distract us from the real story. It is one that I am familiar with, as a social scientist who researches CSEC and as a survivor of childhood sexual exploitation. Getting lost in all the conspiracy theories about Epstein, the clamoring for the release of the Epstein files, and the focus on the Maxwell grand jury materials is the reality that multiple victims have lost their lives in the aftermath of being groomed and abused by Epstein and Maxwell, while most perpetrators have remained free to abuse countless additional children.

A key element of power is the ability to hide the truth of what is happening. Such obfuscation is the sine qua non of trauma in general, and sexual abuse in particular. Exploitation thrives in relationships of stark power imbalance: In my case, I was a child and depended on my father for survival. For Epstein and Maxwell’s victims, many were poor with limited educational access, had experienced child sexual abuse prior to this exploitation, and/or came from fraught family living situations.

To keep victims from talking, perpetrators tell them they will not be believed. Victim-blaming tropes proliferate in the culture and instill doubt, which denigrates those brave enough to speak out. Predators thrive on society’s propensity to blame and dehumanize victims; denying their reality downplays and dilutes perpetrators’ heinous crimes.

Like Epstein, my father was a sociopathic, narcissistic pedophile. He sexually abused and trafficked me to truckers at rest areas along a highway near our home in northern Appalachia from a very early age until he left our family when I was 12. While my path from CSEC victim to researcher and advocate may be unique, my experience of being excoriated for telling the truth mirrors those violated and exploited by Epstein and Maxwell. Despite securing corroborating evidence that my father exploited me, most of my family is convinced I'm lying, refusing to believe that my father could have done something so unthinkable. Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and my father all knew exactly what they were doing by relying upon their power and deceit to hide and minimize their culpability.

By refusing to engage in political opposition around this issue, and supporting (rather than blaming) victims, individuals from both sides of the aisle can quell the partisan smokescreen being used to muddy the stark reality of CSEC: children are bought, sold, and traded for sex every day by adults from all political affiliations.

The responsibility lies with us to stop using CSEC as a political cudgel, and to engage in a reckoning as a way to help survivors. First, we must believe victims, and recognize the techniques perpetrators like my father and Epstein use to dehumanize and disbelieve victims. In addition, we must be able to spot the perverse dynamics of trauma that try to blame victims for their own abuse, enabling perpetrators to continue to traffic children and take the focus away from their crimes. Third, we must accept the possibility that trusted members of our communities and families may be hiding behind a “he would never do that” ruse and are, in fact, capable of sexually abusing children.

Lastly, we can use our power—as relatives, jurors, constituents, elected officials—to change the rules of what a “prototypical” child sex trafficking case looks like. Otherwise, predators will continue to use our division and silence to their advantage. If it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes a village to sexually exploit a child.

Kate Price, Ph.D., is an associate research scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women, where she studies family-controlled commercial sexual exploitation of children and state-level child sex trafficking policy.