Virginia Giuffre\u2019s latest revelations are a \u201cmirror held up to a system\u201d that still enables powerful men to groom, abuse and exploit women with impunity, women\u2019s rights campaigners have said.<\/p>\n
Excerpts from Nobody\u2019s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, which were released ahead of the book\u2019s publication next week, lay bare how Jeffrey Epstein<\/a> and Ghislaine Maxwell took advantage of their position of power to manipulate and groom Giuffre.<\/p>\n In the posthumously published text<\/a>, Giuffre warns that more women will suffer similar experiences if people continue to believe that Epstein was \u201can anomaly, an outlier\u201d.<\/p>\n She wrote: \u201cThe way he viewed women and girls \u2013 as playthings to be used and discarded \u2013 is not uncommon among certain powerful men who believe they are above the law. And many of those men are still going about their daily lives, enjoying the benefits of their power.\u201d<\/p>\n Her view was echoed by women\u2019s rights experts and campaigners, who told the Guardian that wide-ranging reforms were needed to challenge deep-rooted societal and institutional misogyny.<\/p>\n Charlotte Proudman, a barrister and women\u2019s rights campaigner, described the memoir as both a \u201cpersonal account of unimaginable abuse\u201d as well as \u201ca mirror held up to a system that still enables powerful men to exploit girls and women with impunity\u201d.<\/p>\n She added that the account exposes \u201cthe network of privilege\u201d that protected Epstein and Maxwell. \u201cEpstein was not an aberration, he was a symptom of a culture that normalises male entitlement and protects those at the top,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Mags Lesiak, a criminologist at the University of Cambridge who researches gender-based violence, agreed that the memoir underscores how \u201csexual exploitation is not an individual aberration \u2013 it\u2019s a system\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cGrooming doesn\u2019t begin with violence. It begins with flattery, opportunity, charm and access,\u201d she said, noting that despite public scepticism about Giuffre\u2019s lack of agency, her research shows that psychological dependence is created long before violence happens.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s most chilling is not Epstein\u2019s uniqueness, but how unexceptional his methods were. The psychology of coercive control, emotional conditioning and \u2018reward-punishment\u2019 cycles, mirrors what we see in countless abuse cases \u2013 from elite trafficking networks to private homes.\u201d<\/p>\n Andrea Simon, the director of the End Violence Against Women<\/a> Coalition, said the memoir sheds light on the ways \u201cperpetrators with power, wealth and status are able to silence victims of sexual violence by weaponising the law\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThis entitlement has its roots in gender inequality and the power and control it produces. Until we tackle inequality, we won\u2019t address the root causes of violence against women and girls,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Giuffre, who died by suicide on 25 April 2025, wrote in her book that many people were complicit in Epstein\u2019s crimes, because they \u201cwatched and they didn\u2019t care\u201d.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Gemma Sherrington, the chief executive of the domestic abuse charity Refuge, said violence against women is known to \u201cthrive in silence\u201d, which is amplified by the way it \u201ccontinues to be trivialised or outright ignored to this day\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThroughout history, survivors who have fought to break that silence have been scrutinised, ridiculed and disbelieved \u2013 simply for having the courage to challenge not only their perpetrator, but the systems that enable misogyny to persist,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She urged a whole-society approach to tackle violence against women and girls, starting with education to challenge pervasive societal attitudes, and increased funding for specialist support services, but also emphasising the need to listen to survivors, especially in the justice system.<\/p>\n Lindsey Blumell, an academic at City, University of London, who has produced a documentary on sexual assault, noted that Giuffre and her peers \u201cexperienced greater backlash and negative consequences for telling their stories than most of the men they\u2019ve accused\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIn a system where there is little justice for sexual abuse survivors, there can be no realistic expectation of avoiding sexual abuse in the future,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the UK, Rape Crisis<\/a> offers support on 0808 500 2222 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland<\/a>, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland<\/a>. In the US, Rainn<\/a> offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect<\/a> (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org\/rcip\/internl.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Virginia Giuffre\u2019s latest revelations are a \u201cmirror held up to a system\u201d that still enables powerful men to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-204858","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}