Virginia Giuffre’s latest revelations are a “mirror held up to a system” that still enables powerful men to groom, abuse and exploit women with impunity, women’s rights campaigners have said.
Excerpts from Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, which were released ahead of the book’s publication next week, lay bare how Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell took advantage of their position of power to manipulate and groom Giuffre.
In the posthumously published text, Giuffre warns that more women will suffer similar experiences if people continue to believe that Epstein was “an anomaly, an outlier”.
She wrote: “The way he viewed women and girls – as playthings to be used and discarded – 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.”
Her view was echoed by women’s rights experts and campaigners, who told the Guardian that wide-ranging reforms were needed to challenge deep-rooted societal and institutional misogyny.
Charlotte Proudman, a barrister and women’s rights campaigner, described the memoir as both a “personal account of unimaginable abuse” as well as “a mirror held up to a system that still enables powerful men to exploit girls and women with impunity”.
She added that the account exposes “the network of privilege” that protected Epstein and Maxwell. “Epstein was not an aberration, he was a symptom of a culture that normalises male entitlement and protects those at the top,” she said.
Mags Lesiak, a criminologist at the University of Cambridge who researches gender-based violence, agreed that the memoir underscores how “sexual exploitation is not an individual aberration – it’s a system”.
“Grooming doesn’t begin with violence. It begins with flattery, opportunity, charm and access,” she said, noting that despite public scepticism about Giuffre’s lack of agency, her research shows that psychological dependence is created long before violence happens.
“What’s most chilling is not Epstein’s uniqueness, but how unexceptional his methods were. The psychology of coercive control, emotional conditioning and ‘reward-punishment’ cycles, mirrors what we see in countless abuse cases – from elite trafficking networks to private homes.”
Andrea Simon, the director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, said the memoir sheds light on the ways “perpetrators with power, wealth and status are able to silence victims of sexual violence by weaponising the law”.
“This entitlement has its roots in gender inequality and the power and control it produces. Until we tackle inequality, we won’t address the root causes of violence against women and girls,” she said.
Giuffre, who died by suicide on 25 April 2025, wrote in her book that many people were complicit in Epstein’s crimes, because they “watched and they didn’t care”.
Gemma Sherrington, the chief executive of the domestic abuse charity Refuge, said violence against women is known to “thrive in silence”, which is amplified by the way it “continues to be trivialised or outright ignored to this day”.
“Throughout history, survivors who have fought to break that silence have been scrutinised, ridiculed and disbelieved – simply for having the courage to challenge not only their perpetrator, but the systems that enable misogyny to persist,” she said.
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.
Lindsey Blumell, an academic at City, University of London, who has produced a documentary on sexual assault, noted that Giuffre and her peers “experienced greater backlash and negative consequences for telling their stories than most of the men they’ve accused”.
“In a system where there is little justice for sexual abuse survivors, there can be no realistic expectation of avoiding sexual abuse in the future,” she said.
• Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html
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