With support from World Without Exploitation, Liz Stein and more than 20 survivors led a powerful call on Capitol Hill for the release of the Epstein files and real accountability.
Earlier this summer, I sat with Liz Stein at a kitchen table in Brooklyn. A survivor of abuse by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, she was exhausted, and she was angry. A storm of media coverage of the Department of Justice’s interview of Maxwell left her surrounded by photos of her abusers, who had been enabled by the system so many times. When news came that Maxwell had been transferred to a minimum-security facility, Liz hit her breaking point. Once again, survivors were being talked about—not heard.
It was around that kitchen table that an idea was born: What if we could shift the narrative? What if we could bring Liz, and numerous Epstein survivors, together to reclaim the microphone? Rather than magnifying the voice of a convicted perjurer and abuser, we could instead amplify the voices of survivors who had been silenced.
Fast-forward to Sept. 3, when over 20 Epstein-Maxwell survivors descended on Washington, D.C. Standing together on Capitol Hill, these brave women came with power, clarity and purpose. They demanded that lawmakers, the media and the public finally listen—not to Maxwell’s repeated lies, but to those women whose courage has carried this fight for decades.
For years, these women were kept apart. Many didn’t even know the others existed. That was no accident. Rather, it was a deliberate tactic to isolate, strip them of community, and weaken their voices. But, on that warm day in D.C., the walls of isolation came crashing down. Side-by-side, they stood not as scattered individuals, but as a united force impossible to ignore.
