UN experts demand accountability for trafficking allegations in ‘Epstein files’, warn of continuing violence of patriarchal power systems

Image: Undated image of Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump. Photo: House Oversight Democrats

GENEVA 16 April 2026 – UN experts* today called for justice and accountability for trafficking allegations emerging from the ‘Epstein files,’ warning that the disclosures reveal the continuing violence of patriarchal systems of power. They issued the following joint statement:

“We are gravely concerned by the credible allegations in the ‘Epstein files’ of systemic trafficking of young women and girls for purposes of sexual exploitation and call for a full and transparent investigation.

The ‘Epstein file’ allegations implicate senior politicians, public figures, diplomats, global business leaders and leading academics, and present shocking evidence of the trafficking of girls and young women across multiple international borders, continuing over decades, with devastating failures of prevention, failures to identify, assist and protect victims and survivors, and to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators.

That such widespread child trafficking could persist at a global level – implicating multiple globally renowned figures – brings into sharp relief the entrenched discrimination and violence of patriarchal systems of power, and the grave failures of accountability that allow them to endure.

The commodification and brutalisation of the bodies of young women and girls revealed in media reporting, and the publication of faceless images of children in abject, vulnerable positions, must be accounted for. The lives and childhoods of countless young women and girls have been devastated, but survivors have organised and are collectively and courageously calling for urgent action and the implementation of human rights law, without exceptions.

The trafficking of children and young women is a serious criminal offence, and a grave violation of human rights. We are deeply concerned that the response of states and law enforcement authorities has been wholly inadequate – disproportionate to the urgency and gravity of the crimes alleged, and to the suffering of victims and survivors. The failure to ensure accountability perpetuates a culture of impunity that disproportionately harms women and girls, and undermines the promise of equal protection under international human rights law.

The trafficking of children for sexual exploitation destroys childhoods and has devastating long term consequences for the lives, survival and health of children.

We remind states that they have a positive obligation, grounded in international law, to prevent trafficking in persons for sexual exploitation, to identify, assist and protect victims of trafficking.

With international attention now waning, we recall the obligation on states to ensure effective access to justice for victims and survivors, including the provision of legal aid, and the obligation to ensure that sanctions are proportionate, dissuasive and effective, recognising the aggravated nature of child trafficking and the rights of all victims and survivors to effective remedies, including compensation. States must equally fulfil their obligations to ensure equality and non-discrimination — failures of accountability in cases of gender-based violence and the trafficking of women and girls are not merely criminal justice failures; they reflect and reinforce the structural discrimination that international human rights law expressly prohibits.

Victims and survivors must be at the centre of effective trauma-informed and gender-sensitive responses to trafficking in persons. They must guarantee medical assistance, including reproductive and sexual health services, psychosocial assistance and long-term social inclusion and recovery measures. We recall that survivor-led accountability requires first and foremost that the dignity of the survivor is upheld, highlighting that accountability is multidimensional and individual, and must reflect the rights, needs and wishes of survivors.

We must move beyond media reporting to effective action, accountability and urgent measures to ensure access to justice, to transformative survivor-centred reparations, guarantees of non-repetition, and to truth – recognising the extreme trauma and violence endured, and the systemic and widespread nature of the grave violations of human rights that have occurred. States bear the obligation to act, and that obligation is long overdue.”