Vox Populi:

We can fight child sexual abuse using a block-and-build strategy rooted in economic, racial, and gender justice.

What can be done to stop another Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and their network of people who participated in the abuse of more than 1,000 girls and young women? Right now, the U.S. right and carceral liberal forces (including many Democrats) are focused heavily on demanding that the Department of Justice release the grand jury files related to the Epstein case — as though this “smoking gun” will finally clarify everything and bring perpetrators to justice. But both the right and carceral liberals have a bias toward protecting the status quo and the very institutions that fail survivors of childhood sexual abuse every day, like police and prisons. What would actually prevent another Epstein and meaningfully deter sexual abuse of children and young people? And why aren’t more of us on the left talking about structural solutions?

We write this as two longtime abolitionist feminists, survivors, and advocates on the front lines of the fight to end violence against women and young people. From where we stand, we see two important dynamics related to the Epstein case. First, we know of no major left organizations or coalitions that have responded by demanding meaningful action on childhood sexual abuse — despite the horrific scale of violence and the deep divisions that Trump’s close relationship with Epstein has created within the MAGA movement, divisions that could be strategically widened. Ending child sexual abuse could hardly be a more unifying issue. 

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