If anyone ever thought that one person cannot change the world, they were wrong. Virginia Roberts Giuffre, the Jeffrey Epstein/Prince Andrew accuser, proved that the single-mindedness and zeal of a woman on a moral mission can be loud and forceful. In stripping Prince Andrew of his royal titles and evicting him from the royal estate in Windsor, his brother King Charles made a declarative statement that no one, not even a royal, enjoys entitlement to a minor for their own sexual pleasure.
Though many in England were chagrined that it took this long for King Charles to renounce his brother and denude him of his royal stipend, the King was in fact reacting to the spirit of the times. Today, we see subjugation of children and minorities as abhorrent. We have child labor laws, healthcare for children, and mandatory education. Children are no longer dying on the streets as they were in Charles Dickens’ times. Yet, it took a very long time for the clamor of the vociferous voices for justice in England’s media, public events, and at church services to be heard.
The person at the center of this mission was Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who died of suicide last April after suffering excruciating physical pain and severe psychological trauma. Subject to repeated forced sexual encounters and violence at the hands of fallen financier and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, Ms. Giuffre was resolved to bring her tormentors to justice. Unfortunately, she hadn’t lived to see Prince Andrew expelled from the royal family. However, her relentless two-decade quest for justice landed Epstein and his collaborator, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, in prison. Epstein took his life in 2019 while awaiting trial.
Ms. Giuffre told news reporters while standing outside Epstein’s seven-floor mansion on New York’s Upper East Side that her wish was for the 28,000 square foot abode to be “burned to the ground.” Perhaps this was her way of trying to extinguish the searing memories of sexual torment at that home.
But this was more than a home being burned to the ground. Never before has the monarchy in modern times convulsed from a scandal of this magnitude. It took one woman to bring about the expulsion of a royal family member. I knew this woman. Here is how.
I am not a victim of Jeffrey Epstein nor am I an associate of Ghislaine Maxwell. I am a sociologist and social activist. I had served as a panelist at the Investigative Reporters and Editors conference many years ago. It was there that I met eminent Attorney David Boies, who gave the keynote address. When I learned that Mr. Boies was representing Ms. Giuffre, I reached out to him to pledge support since my four-decade long research in child sexual abuse and sexual exploitation made me sympathetic to Ms. Giuffre’s cause.
I shared with Ms. Giuffre a book proposal on child sex-trafficking through the family courts. Immediately, Ms. Giuffre responded with a poignant and powerful jacket quote, which appears on my book soon to be released by Oxford University Press. I was amazed at her alacrity and cheer in supporting the publication of my research. There was no need to explain, to connect the dots, to make excuses or justifications for the arguments and theories I propounded in my book. She understood. And she understood completely – all the nuances, as she had lived the pain of child sex exploitation just as the protagonists in the case narratives presented in my book. She stood at my side – a sister warrior in the Sisyphean struggle to fight child-sex trafficking enterprises.
Ms. Giuffre was not daunted by Jeffrey Epstein’s billions. She knew he had connections with the world’s most powerful players in media, business, and politics. He boasted he owned Florida. But she persisted nevertheless in her search for justice, always mindful that her survival could be undermined at any moment. Money was not her incentive nor her goal. In fact, her 16.3 million settlement from the royal family, through Prince Andrew, was placed in a charity, and not her personal account. She never sought to derive personal benefit from her lawsuit. If not money, and not fame, then what drove Ms. Giuffre to pursue a royal prince who harmed her?
The answer is as old as the Bible. In the book of Deuteronomy 16.11, Moses in his peroration to the Jewish people exhorted: “Justice, Justice, Thou Shalt Pursue.” Ms. Giuffre embodied the biblical exhortation to seek justice with vigor and strength. She left this world a better place. Was she “Nobody’s Girl” as the title of her posthumous Knopf memoir conveys? Or was she the girl who changed history for every underaged female, who can find herself someday at the mercy of a sexual predator?
About the Author: Amy Neustein, Ph.D. is the co-author of From Madness to Mutiny: Why Mothers are Running from the Family Courts – and What Can be Done About It (Oxford University Press)
