Congress overwhelmingly passed legislation on Tuesday forcing the Justice Department to release its files on the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Liz Stein, an Epstein survivor and an anti-trafficking advocate, was at the Capitol when the Epstein bill passed.
鈥淭here was a collective sense of joy,鈥� Stein told Here & Now鈥榮 Elissa Nadworny. 鈥淲hen we were at the House, we had no idea what would be coming after. So, it was really just a day that I think we鈥檙e all trying to still wrap our heads around.鈥�
5 questions with Liz Stein
What are you hearing from the other victims in this moment?
鈥淚 think that many of us have concerns about this. Some of us are feeling a little bit of whiplash. The position that the current administration has taken has been flip-flopping back and forth and back and forth. And so, I think that we are cautiously optimistic about this, but we definitely have feelings about it.鈥�
How has this become politicized?
鈥淲ell, I say very frequently that this isn鈥檛 a political issue. This has been ongoing throughout five administrations of both political parties. What we鈥檙e looking at but what we鈥檙e not seeing clearly is that this is a crime and it鈥檚 a crime of sex trafficking. We are victims of a crime. These people are predators, and they preyed on young girls and women, and I don鈥檛 think that any of us in society, regardless of where our political loyalty lies, could stand for that. And I think that we鈥檙e being distracted by making this a political issue when it鈥檚 not.鈥�
How did you realize you had been trafficked after Epstein was arrested in 2019?
鈥淚 consider myself to be a reasonably well-educated person. I鈥檝e always felt very strongly about women鈥檚 rights, but I had misconceptions about what sex trafficking was. And so when Epstein was arrested in 2019, I really didn鈥檛 understand. I thought in my mind, I was thinking, 鈥楤ut they were my friends. I wasn鈥檛 trafficked. I wasn鈥檛 a girl in Florida. I wasn鈥檛 on the island.鈥� I knew them in New York. I traveled with them a little, but I didn鈥檛, you know, I didn鈥檛 fit with what the media was talking about. And so that left me confused, you know, trying to process what had happened to me. And when I did that, and I actually understood what trafficking was and what it looked like, it was exactly what happened to me. And that made me so angry that I just felt like I had to become a part of the movement.
鈥淲hen you鈥檙e looking at a sex trafficking operation, you have, kind of, three components. You have the pimp or the person who鈥檚 supplying the people to be exploited. You have the buyers or the johns or the men who are receiving the services of the people who are being exploited, and you have the people who are being exploited, right? And we鈥檙e really our attention鈥檚 being refocused because these men 鈥� these men who are perpetrators 鈥� have these positions of power, and it can be almost unthinkable to us that these people that we respect in society could do these horrible things.鈥�
Do you think the Justice Department will actually release the files?
鈥淚 think that we鈥檙e going to have to wait and see. So much of this case has been completely unpredictable for us, but I can say that we鈥檙e really hopeful and that any time that we move closer to seeing what actually happened, we鈥檙e getting closer to having justice.鈥�
What does justice look like to you and the other survivors?
鈥淭hat鈥檚 a question that we get a lot, and it鈥檚 a really hard question to answer. I think justice can come in a lot of different forms for us. I think we鈥檝e seen pieces of justice, but ultimately, I think that we all want to see whoever was involved in these crimes be held accountable.鈥�
____
produced and edited this interview for broadcast with . Raphelson also adapted it for the web.
This article was originally published on
Copyright 2025 WBUR