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September 2025

The Epstein Matter: Enough Abuse® on the Record

The Epstein matter continues to dominate news cycles as the public feasts
on the juicy story of the powerful and rich hobnobbing with a mega rich sex
offender and a potential coverup. One might have hoped that the public’s
and the media’s main focus would be on the estimated 1,000 victims of these
crimes, but it has not been. Or that we as a country are finally reckoning
with institutional child sexual abuse. But we’re not. Not even close.

Political factions are trading outrage over redacted documents, missing
video footage, and who knew what, when. Of course, transparency matters.
The public has a right to know which of the elite may have enabled abuse,
who committed crimes, who turned a blind eye. Yet, this is not about a dead
man’s case or his accomplice, it’s about the sexual abuse of teen girls,
once referred to euphemistically as women “on the younger side” but
children, nonetheless.

The real crisis isn’t buried in a black book, a flight log, or some list.
It’s in plain sight. The deeper, more pressing emergency is one we’ve been
refusing to face for decades: the widespread, systemic and growing epidemic
of child sexual abuse in America.

This latest story is not about a single predator or an outlier institution.
What the Epstein case represents is a pattern - a culture of institutional
complicity that values reputation, money and power over the protection of
children. The Catholic Church shielded abusive priests, moving them to
unsuspecting communities. The Boy Scouts buried allegations for decades in
their “perversion files.” Penn State ignored years of complaints about
coaches abusing with impunity. USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic
Committee turned a blind eye to Larry Nassar's abuse. And now in the
Epstein matter, it appears that even banks and the criminal justice system
may have chosen to protect pedophiles rather than children.

Despite this staggering pattern of institutional failure, most politicians
have remained slow to proactively advance systemic legal reform or
critically needed prevention strategies. Meanwhile, children remain in
danger and survivors are forced to wait. They wait while lobbyists whisper
in lawmakers’ ears about insurance liabilities. They wait while their
abusers retire comfortably. They wait while lawsuits are delayed,
dismissed, or denied. They wait while bad acting institutions sprint to the
bankruptcy courts for cover.

Unless we implement a set of aggressive prevention and bipartisan
legislative strategies, we can expect CDC’s dire prediction - that an
estimated one in four girls and one in thirteen boys will experience sexual
abuse before they turn 18. That’s not a trivial statistic. That’s an
epidemic.

Here are five legislative actions we can take now if we are serious about
protecting children.

1. Mandate training on child sexual abuse prevention for all schools and
youth-serving organizations; adopt comprehensive codes of conduct that
detail prohibited boundary-violating behaviors of staff in these
institutions; strengthen screening of new hires; and close age of consent
loopholes that protect abusers from prosecution.

2. Pass bipartisan federal and state laws to stop the out-of-control and
ever expanding online sexual exploitation of our children on social media,
messaging apps and gaming platforms.

3. End civil and criminal statutes of limitations for child sexual abuse in
every state so survivors can seek justice, hold abusers accountable and
prevent the abuse of more children.

4. Ban non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in child sexual abuse cases that
continue to protect abusers. Truth should not be sealed for a settlement.

5. Reform Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code so institutions can't use
bankruptcy to dodge responsibility and conceal predators.

These are not radical proposals. They are overdue, necessary, and long
demanded by survivors, experts and advocates. Let’s stop pretending that
child sexual abuse is someone else’s crisis. It is all of ours. It is not
limited to private islands and billionaires. It happens in classrooms,
locker rooms, church basements, and youth retreats. It happens in rich
communities and poor ones, in white families and families of color, in red
states and blue. It is everywhere - everywhere our children are. And unless
we collectively - the public, the media and elected officials, treat it
like the national emergency it is, we are complicit in the harm to our
children and in the dangerous silence that follows.

Enough Abuse® is a non-partisan, independent and outcome-driven child
advocacy organization with a 6-decade history of improving the lives of
vulnerable children. We prevent the sexual abuse of children in their
homes, communities and online by educating parents and the public; training
professionals serving children in schools and youth organizations; and
advocating for policies that ensure justice for survivors, hold abusers
accountable, and prevent the future abuse of our children.

In these uncertain times, the impact of federal budget cuts has already
resulted in the pausing of our state earmark funding that provides support
for our crucial prevention work. Your donation can help fill this gap so we
can continue to meet the demand for our services, faster, and for more
children. Thank you for your support and the commitment to children that it
represents.

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