As news reports continue to focus on Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell and whether we’ll ever see a list of clients that may have been maintained by the notorious pair, those who were harmed by the duo and survived their crimes have been on a seemingly never-ending roller coaster. Every twist and turn of the news cycle knocks these sex trafficking survivors around: A list of clients is on the attorney general’s desk. A list doesn’t exist. Congress is demanding files. Maxwell has been interviewed by the DOJ. Will she be pardoned?
None of those twists or turns has gotten those who survived Epstein and Maxwell any closer to the justice they deserve.
None of those twists or turns has gotten those who survived Epstein and Maxwell any closer to the justice they deserve. There’s only been emotional whiplash. Also, let’s make an important distinction: Epstein’s and Maxwell’s “clients” are sex buyers.
Victims deserve justice for the abuse they survived. That justice should include accountability for their traffickers and for the buyers of illicit sex, who were complicit. It is a free pass for systems of sexual exploitation to flourish when there is no accountability or when justice appears to be fading out of reach or missing entirely.
One of us was a victim of Epstein and Maxwell. The other is a former sex trafficking investigator. In our work to help survivors of sexual abuse and exploitation and to prevent more abuse from happening, we heard a story that coheres with countless others we have heard before. A woman who was sex-trafficked for years was eventually identified by law enforcement and gained her freedom. Her sex trafficker was convicted and sent to prison.
That unfolding of events seemed like a success and, in one sense, it was. But something was missing: The sex buyers who raped her were not brought to justice for the crimes they committed against her. Their behavior and the physical, sexual and psychological harm they inflict will continue without compunction.
Ominously, this is the case for countless other sex buyers out there. Neither they nor the rapes they committed are enumerated. Their unfettered power robs their victims of dignity, rendering them invisible in one of the most visible criminal economies in existence.
Sex buyers, famous or not, fueled Epstein and Maxwell’s sex trafficking network and perpetuated the demand that directly harmed so many women and children. Without sex buyers, the market forces that enabled Epstein and Maxwell would simply not exist.
Without sex buyers, the market forces that enabled Epstein and Maxwell would simply not exist. A National Center on Sexual Exploitation study found that men who buy sex or seek to buy sex can be deterred by effective demand reduction tactics. Powerful deterrents include the likelihood of arrest, the disclosure of their identities, and the likely loss of employment and reputation. These deterrents are critically missing in the Epstein-Maxwell case. This explains, in part, the outcry for justice. If any one of these tactics were to be employed in the Epstein-Maxwell case, then survivors would have a lot more answers and we’d be closer to even a semblance of justice. According to a 2018 study from Demand Abolition, which surveyed 8,201 adult males in the United States, 6.2% of men had bought sex within the previous 12 months, and 20.6% had done so at least once in their lifetimes. This underscores that buying sex isn’t inevitable. But the Epstein-Maxwell case demonstrates why targeting sex buyers is as important to ending sex trafficking as targeting the sex traffickers themselves. Ending the demand for sex-trafficked individuals is not only possible, but it is also a necessity. A range of multilateral legal obligations and political commitments geared toward ending demand are in existence and the United States has an obligation to act against sex buyers. Effectively absolving sex buyers from sex trafficking crimes and denying justice for victims has wider ramifications. Such ramifications include crippling the efficacy of the annual U.S. Trafficking in Persons Report as the principal diplomatic tool used by the U.S. government to engage foreign governments on human trafficking. We have to shine a light in the darkness in the Epstein-Maxwell case. It is not the first sex trafficking network to exist, but we should make sure that it’s one of the last. Every entity or person who participated, enabled or perpetuated Epstein and Maxwell’s sex trafficking crimes must be held accountable. Our nation is afforded the proper investigative expertise, which is capable of a diligent and relentless pursuit of justice. We hope to see the system of exploitation come crumbling down. Survivors deserve answers. They’re watching, and so is the rest of the world.
Teresa J. Helm
Teresa J. Helm, an Epstein-Maxwell survivor, is Survivor Services Coordinator at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
Marcel van der Watt
Marcel van der Watt, a former sex trafficking investigator, is president and CEO of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. 
