They all survived Jeffrey Epstein. They have something to tell you

‘If I could go back, I would tell someone’

Liz Stein, human trafficking specialist and survivor advocate

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Liz Stein. Composite: The Guardian/Getty Images

When I met Epstein and Maxwell, I was a senior in college. I had aspirations of going to law school. People had a lot of expectations for what my life would look like. But my life turned out the exact opposite.

For decades, I buried what happened to me. I thought these were friends I had met in New York – that is how they made the relationship feel. So the narrative in my mind was that I had these unspeakable, horrific experiences with people I thought cared about me. I never wanted to think about it. I never wanted to talk about it. I just lived with it.

I wasn’t ready for his face to appear on television the day he was arrested. And what followed confused me further, because the coverage focused on the girls in Florida – and I had these preconceived notions about what trafficking was and who it happened to. I wasn’t underage. I never went to the island. So I thought: that’s different, that’s separate. But I educated myself. I immersed myself in the national anti-trafficking movement, consuming every webinar and publication I could find. And when I did that, I thought: this is exactly what happened to me. And I was just enraged and saddened to know it wasn’t just me – that it was potentially hundreds of other young women.

When I delivered my victim impact statement after Maxwell’s sentencing [for sex trafficking], I nearly shouted. I talked about my emotional health, my physical health, how this derailed my life. I wanted to project my voice so that no one in that courtroom could ignore what I was saying. And it was important to me to look at her directly while I spoke. I didn’t want her to see me cry. I didn’t want to give her that satisfaction.

That moment changed something. I couldn’t imagine having this visibility and not fighting for justice. If I could go back, I would tell someone. And if they didn’t listen, I would tell someone else, and I would just keep telling until someone listened.

What I want people to understand is that speaking out publicly is not a requirement. For those who aren’t ready, know that there are women standing in their truth on your behalf. And for those who are afraid, if you tell someone and they don’t listen, tell someone else. Just keep telling until someone listens. Even if it falls on deaf ears, you will still be proud of yourself for being willing to stand in your uncomfortable truth.

‘What changed everything was meeting other survivors’

Danielle Bensky, choreographer, performer and survivor advocate

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Danielle Bensky. Composite: The Guardian/Getty Images

My abuse started when I was 17 years old. I was a competition dance kid, then a ballet dancer – training at a performing arts school, attending Alvin Ailey in the afternoons, with dreams of a career on stage. I had run away from home for a while because my mother was really intense, and then she called me back, telling me she was dying.

The manipulation had already begun – he had been planting seeds, telling me he knew people who could help with my dance career, that he could make things happen. When I finally brought him my mother’s scans, the room shifted. He told me he knew the best doctors at Mount Sinai and could make sure she got amazing care – or he could have that taken away.

He framed it as a choice I was making, but there was no real choice. I was 17, my mother was sick and I was terrified. What made it worse was that in the dance world, I had already been trained not to speak up. Ballet taught me there’s no talking back, no questioning the hierarchy. Even when I was subpoenaed, I was so afraid – Epstein had built that fear in all of us, this sense that he owned the world, that everyone was in his pocket.

What changed everything was meeting other survivors. When we came together in September, it was the first time I had ever been in a group of women who looked at each other’s strengths and built each other up – not pitted against each other the way the dance world had taught me women always were. Speaking out publicly was never part of my plan. I thought I would do this for a couple of months and then go back to my life as a choreographer and teacher. But once you start, you really can’t stop – because you just know how much still needs to be done.

Building this movement has meant learning to recognize each other’s superpowers and letting them guide the work. We are just beginning to understand the lobbying that still needs to happen, the legislation that still needs to pass. The first bill we are focused on is Virginia’s law [legislation that would eliminate the statute of limitations for adult survivors of sexual abuse to file civil claims against their abusers] – named for Virginia Giuffre – and it feels like the most important first step we can take together in her memory.

The deeper truth is this: the demand that Epstein fed has never gone away. Someone has stepped into that role. I have seen it. I have watched young people I work with – 18-year-olds who have already lost friends, who have already been victimized – and I think: this is such a hard world to be raised in. It was hard when I was 17, and it should never repeat itself. We are doing this work for them. We are doing it for every young person who does not yet know that what is happening to them has a name, and that there are people who will fight for them. That is why we are not going anywhere.

‘We took our power back’

Lisa Phillips, survivor advocate and host of From Now On podcast

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Lisa Phillips. Composite: The Guardian/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images

The abuse happened to me in the early 2000s. After 2004, I didn’t think or talk about Epstein. I suppressed everything – all the emotions, all the confusion, all the pain – and I just went on with my life for the next 15 years. I pretended that nothing was wrong.

And then one day, I was sitting in front of the television and the news reported that he had died in prison. In that moment, all the weight of everything I had kept inside came rushing forward. I felt like someone who had been a mentor to me had died, and also like the worst, most evil man in the world had died – and I didn’t know how to feel. I was so confused by my own grief.

When I reached out to my partner at the time to try to talk about it, he didn’t hold space for me. He didn’t hold my hand and say, tell me everything. He said he didn’t want to hear about it. And that was the beginning of shame for me – the realization that people don’t want to listen.

When you speak out, you have to be prepared to be disbelieved, dismissed and torn down. We live in a country where victims are made to feel guilty – for what they wore, for what they said, for what they didn’t say. So when you find people who will hold space for you – who will listen, who will love you without shame – you hold on to them. You get rid of the people who won’t. You surround yourself with those who accept you for who you are and take that shame away from you. You do not need to carry it.

I have come to understand that the only way to break powerful people down is for survivors to band together and speak. Before, it was low power against high power – and you never win that fight. But when survivors come together, and when we get powerful people behind us, something shifts. We are not scared any more. We took our power back. And we are not done.

As for what comes next, I am not waiting on Washington. I spent last week in the United Kingdom meeting with members of parliament and I am focused on getting Ireland and other European countries to open thorough investigations. Justice may not look the same everywhere, but it is coming. We have made sure of that.

‘It was never just about Epstein’

Jess Michaels, founder and CEO and 3Joannes Inc and the #withyoutoo social safety app

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Jess Michaels. Composite: The Guardian/Getty Images/AP

For 27 years, I thought I was the only one. The first time I saw Epstein’s face again was in Julie K Brown’s article [on Epstein’s 2008 plea deal], and I hadn’t seen it in nearly three decades. Reading that there were other women – that was the first time I truly grappled with what had happened to me. Because back in 1991, I froze. Back then, I understood the laws to mean that rape was determined by how much you resisted. So I thought: I didn’t fight, I didn’t scream, I didn’t run. It must be my fault. I was too weak to stop it.

When I finally told people – family, friends, colleagues, about 50 people I cared about – 40 of them shared their own stories with me. Four of those were men. And something else struck me: it was the first time many of them had ever felt safe enough to talk about this issue at all. That is what I’ve found across the board. The reason survivors are disclosing now is because they’re starting to feel that there is someone safe to disclose alongside. Disclosure is a big part of this movement.

Building this movement has required all of us, and it has required the right infrastructure behind us – months of meetings with lawmakers, telling our stories over and over and over again to people who did not know us, hoping we were being heard, hoping we were asking for the right things. I have done between four and 14 interviews a week since July. We don’t get paid for this. What has kept me going is the recognition that this is no longer just about us. People are getting out of abusive marriages. People are disclosing for the first time. They are feeling safe because they are watching us speak. We hold that in a very sacred space.

Justice, to me, is not one moment. It is the millions of people who now feel empowered. I believe it will be survivors – the highest demographic of any measure in this country – who ultimately shift what happens in our legal system, in law enforcement, in the halls of government. By the time people finish listening to us, I want them to understand that it was never just about Epstein.