As the US Department of Justice published 3.5 million pages of the Epstein files, deputy US attorney Todd Blanche indicated that the deluge of documents wouldn’t lead to additional criminal charges. Victims want “to be made whole”, he said, but that “doesn’t mean we can just create evidence or that we can just kind of come up with a case that isn’t there.”

Given the scale of the revelations, and the fact that millions of files haven’t been released, that statement seems incredible. But beyond this, survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse have come forward for years to tell their stories, and have not received justice.

In an interview in September 2025, six Epstein survivors stated that the Department of Justice had not contacted them in the process of reviewing the files.

Not only have Epstein survivors been shut out from the process, the department revealed the identities and personal information of survivors in the publicly released 3.5 million pages. Survivor Danielle Bensky told news outlets she found her name and personal information in the files. Such an error is gross negligence and incompetence that silences and endangers victims.

From ignored FBI reports in 1996 to carelessly exposed victim identities in 2025, the Epstein scandal is a masterclass in how institutions fail survivors — even when the evidence fills 3.5 million pages

Of course, not all people named in the files sexually abused or were complicit in the sexual abuse of girls and young women. But this moment is an echo of how authorities have reacted to Epstein’s survivors for 30 years.

As the political and financial scandals emerge, politicians have called for a “victim-centred” approach. But as people react with shock to the revelations in the files, it’s clear that the voices and experiences of the victims are still being ignored.

Decades of evidence

Survivors of Epstein’s abuse had been speaking out for years before the public became fascinated by Epstein’s crimes and the famous men in his network.

In 1996, Maria Farmer reported to the New York Police Department and the FBI that Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell had violently groped her. She was 25 at the time, and later found out her 16-year-old sister Annie had also been violated by Epstein. The FBI failed to investigate, and abuse of girls continued.

Victims’ rights lawyer Brad Edwards has represented over 200 of Epstein’s survivors. In 2008, Edwards told a federal judge that Epstein might be the “most dangerous sexual predator in US history.”

That same year, Epstein was handed a sweetheart deal of being charged with solicitation of prostitution only, instead of child sexual abuse or trafficking. This resulted in a 13-month stint at a minimum security facility, which he left 12 hours per day on most days to “work” at his foundation. He was required to register as a sex offender, though not tried as one.

In Florida, child sexual abuse cases can recommend up to life imprisonment for guilty convictions. Human sex trafficking in Florida can result in up to 30 years imprisonment. Of course, convictions can be complicated — but both child sexual abuse and human sex trafficking are serious crimes associated with extended prison sentences.

The latest files showed that many powerful people in Epstein’s network — [former UK ambassador to the US] Peter Mandelson, for example — were not deterred by him registering as a sex offender in 2008.

At the time, The New York Times headlined its story “Financier Starts Sentence in Prostitution Case.” While factually correct, such an approach arguably downplayed Epstein’s sexual abuse of girls and young women.

Few journalists were courageous enough to explicitly name Epstein’s crimes for what they were. One exception was a 2006 opinion piece by journalist Eliza Cramer of The Palm Beach Post, who wrote: “He was over 50. And they were girls. 14, 15, 16, 17-year-old-girls. That should count for something — the difference between prostitution and paedophilia.”

By 2009, at least a dozen civil lawsuits had been filed against Epstein. In 2010, flight logs obtained through the suits showed several high-powered men, including politicians, celebrities, academics and CEOs, flying on Epstein’s jets.

Justice denied

It took another nine years and many more civil suits before Epstein was arrested on July 6, 2019, for sex trafficking and sex trafficking conspiracy. He faced up to 45 years in prison if convicted.

Survivors again came forward publicly to tell their stories, like Courtney Wild, Virginia Roberts Giuffre and Jennifer Araoz, who were 14 and 15 when first recruited to “massage” Epstein. All three came from difficult backgrounds, and all three claimed to have eventually been raped by Epstein. They were adults by the time they finally saw their abuser behind bars.

Survivors were denied justice once again when Epstein was found dead in his jail cell in August 2019. But that didn’t stop them from speaking out in 2021 during Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial, which ended in a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking girls.

The fallout from the latest revelations has again put survivors secondary to the actions of powerful men. Mandelson, who maintained a friendship with Epstein after his 2008 conviction, initially declined to apologise to Epstein’s victims and distance himself from any knowledge of the financier’s sex crimes.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who in 2022 settled a civil sexual assault case from Giuffre without an admission of liability, has only in the last few months lost his royal titles. And only with this latest batch of revelations has finally left his royal residence.

Giuffre’s memoir was released October 2025, months after she died. A line in her book sums up our responsibility to stop ignoring the survivors: “I know this is a lot to take in. The violence. The neglect. The bad decisions. The self-harm. Imagine if a trauma reel like this played in your head all the time, as it does [in] mine … but please don’t stop reading.”

The sexual abuse and sex trafficking of girls and young women detailed by the survivors is harrowing. Removing a few titles or losing a job will never be adequate justice for the crimes committed, nor for the sidelining of victims for so many years.

The writer is Lecturer in Journalism at City St George’s, University of London in the UK

Republished from The Conversation

Published in Dawn, EOS, February 15th, 2026