Child Abuse

Ms. offers stories about the abuse of children related to feminist issues and the pursuit of human rights for all. Abortion, adoption, sexual abuse, criminalization of women, drug criminalization and harmful legislation all intersect with the issue of child abuse.

Epstein Didn’t Act Alone. Survivors Want the Modeling Industry Investigated.

PUBLISHED 10/5/2026 by

Ms. interviewed five Jeffrey Epstein survivors who worked in the modeling industry from the 1990s through the early 2000s, and reviewed public testimony and media accounts from many others. While every survivor’s experience is unique, our investigation showed a clear pattern: young women with big dreams, steered toward powerful men who often abused them.

Survivors of abuse by Epstein and his associates and by other powerful men in the modeling industry are now doing work that many institutions and governments have failed to so far: They’re tracing the relationships, patterns and prosecutorial lapses that allowed the abuse to continue, and mapping a path forward toward accountability.

[Part 2 of The Pipeline to Predators, a four-part Ms. investigation into the modeling industry’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein and survivors’ fight for accountability.]

War on Women Report: ICE Lost Count of Detained Women’s Miscarriages; Sexual Assault Still Rampant on College Campuses; Post-Dobbs Ectopic Pregnancy Deaths on the Rise

PUBLISHED 10/2/2026 by , and

MAGA Republicans are back in the White House, and Project 2025 is their guide: the right-wing plan to turn back the clock on women’s rights, remove abortion access, and force women into roles as wives and mothers in the “ideal, natural family structure.”

We know an empowered female electorate is essential to democracy. That’s why day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.

Since our last report:
—On Wednesday, Sept. 2, Gloria Steinem, feminist, social activist and cofounder of Ms., died in her New York City home. She was 92.
—The family of Tierra Walker, who died in 2024 after she was refused a medically necessary abortion under Texas’ abortion ban, is suing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and several of Walker’s doctors and nurses in a first-of-its-kind lawsuit.
—House Republicans have formally censured Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.) for his documented inappropriate conduct toward women staffers, including excessive unwanted attention and gifts ranging from flowers and purses to personalized handguns.
—Trump’s FCC chair, Brendan Carr, spent a decade as part of a cult that trafficked and sexually exploited children and young women, former members allege.
—Almost 200 women have died in the U.S. due to an ectopic pregnancy between 2020 and 2025.
—“Jane Doe,” a former Cornell University student, has filed a lawsuit alleging she was coerced into taking incapacitating drugs, then gang-raped by seven Chi Phi fraternity brothers over a period of several hours at their fraternity house in October 2024. The plaintiff is suing Cornell University, several fraternity and sorority organizations and the seven Chi Phi members: Matthew Ingalls, Johnathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar.
—A jury in Lima, Ohio, has indicted a 22-year-old woman for “abuse of a corpse” after she was arrested in February when she suffered a miscarriage and placed the fetal remains in the trash.
—The same month the details of the Cornell case emerged, a student at Louisiana State University is seeking criminal charges against a student football player for allegedly sexually assaulting her in October 2025. A Title IX investigation at the university level has found that the student-athlete is “responsible” for “sexual assault” and “forcible rape.” However, an appeals judge reduced his punishment from suspension to probation.

… and more.

Who Cares if Political Candidates Associate With Sex Offenders?

PUBLISHED 9/30/2026 by

Republican candidates in two pivotal North Carolina races are being taken to task for their public association with convicted sex offenders who served time for taking indecent liberties with children.

Former North Carolina GOP chair Michael Whatley—the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate—and GOP Supreme Court candidate Sarah Stevens have been called to account in the leadup to the midterm elections for accepting support from one or more individuals either formerly or currently on the state sex offender registry. That support includes campaign work, financial contributions and even public prayers.

North Carolina state Rep. Sarah Stevens (R), who resigned from the state House of Representatives in June to run for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court, attended and accepted a donation from a fundraising picnic last year at the home of convicted sex offender Harvey West. Though Stevens said she “didn’t even know” West, she had appeared on his wife Kim West’s podcast to promote the picnic and was Facebook friends with Harvey West, a former police officer who served six years in prison after being convicted of five counts of indecent liberties with a child in 2000.

This month it was also reported that Pastor Daimon L. King, a registered sex offender “twice sentenced to prison for convictions involving children,” according to ABC, who led the opening prayer at a recent campaign stop for Whatley. King, who leads the Christian church New Beginnings Celebration, declared his church members “fully support and are behind” Whatley’s U.S. Senate candidacy.

‘To Catch a Predator’ at Cornell

PUBLISHED 9/28/2026 by

Feminists on the internet are erupting in rage and recognition after a former Cornell University student filed a lawsuit alleging she was pressured to take ketamine and was subsequently gang-raped for seven hours at a Cornell fraternity house.

At the same time, A24’s new blockbuster Primetime just hit theaters. And as pedophiles and predators continue to occupy the highest echelons of the U.S. government and walk free at universities across the country, Primetime captures why public exposure can feel like the only recourse left when institutions fail to act.

The Cornell case now has a consequential new development: This week, Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten says his office is reopening its investigation and acknowledged his office relied on campus police’s investigation rather than conducting its own.

Public outrage helped bring the case back into view, but it cannot be the primary way that we seek justice. What matters now is whether Cornell and law enforcement answer the questions raised by Doe’s lawsuit … and whether the next student who comes forward has to wait for the Internet to demand those answers.

The Perfect Victim Is a Dead Woman

PUBLISHED 9/17/2026 by

This is a story about choices that are not really choices. It is a story about impossible circumstances propelling us down pathways we believe unimaginable. You always believe it could never happen to you, until it does.

“Our last encounter was him trying to choke me, and me stabbing him.” Naomi sighs and leans against the passenger seat of my car, ending the story of the night she killed her abuser.

A grand jury indicted her for second-degree murder. A year later, she pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter. Initially facing five to 25 years in prison, her sentence was reduced under New York state’s Domestic Violence Survivor Justice Act to three years’ incarceration, with five years of post-release supervision. Even the District Attorney’s office acknowledged Naomi was a victim of domestic violence, which “was a significant contributing factor” to her behavior.

When the options available to her were kill or be killed, why was she even indicted?

We live in a world that punishes survivors and creates more victims with generous latitude inexplicably afforded to men who have proven themselves dangerous to society. It seems that the only perfect victim is a dead one, a woman who can’t talk back.

‘Furious’ Is a Cathartic Feminist Fable After Years of Epstein Stonewalling

PUBLISHED 9/15/2026 by and

Congress passed the Epstein Transparency Act in November 2025, yet the Department of Justice is refusing to release all the Epstein files. For those they have released, the DOJ redacted the perpetrators’ names while revealing the victims’ names. We have watched the victims demand accountability at the Capitol and attend congressional hearings, while being ignored by attorneys general, politicians and prosecutors—over and over. No one has been charged. No one has been charged, prosecuted or convicted other than one woman, Epstein’s partner in crime, Ghislaine Maxwell.

As we rage against the injustices of Epstein’s crimes and the ongoing cover-ups, we find dark satisfaction in the new Hulu series Furious that portrays women with no other recourse fighting back against perpetrators and the protectors and systems that are failing to hold these abusers accountable.

Furious invites survivors of sexual abuse and allies to imagine what it would feel like to “have all the fucking power in the world,” then tap into that power to continue the work of destroying rape culture.

‘Survivors Have Answered Enough’: The Epstein Reading Room Takes Survivors’ Fight on the Road

PUBLISHED 9/11/2026 by | UPDATED 10/5/2026 at 12:16 P.M. PT

Attorney General Todd Blanche came to Dallas last week to deliver a “law and order” message at Trump’s midterm rally, where he praised the president and promised accountability for people who break the law. His central line was: “To evil men and women in this country, know this: President Trump will hold you accountable.”

A few miles away, survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse and their family were asking why that commitment to accountability had not extended to them.

They gathered inside the Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room, surrounded by 3,437 bound volumes containing nearly 3.5 million pages released by the Justice Department. The books weigh about 17,000 pounds and stretch across hundreds of feet of shelving, turning a sprawling digital archive into something visitors can see, walk through and begin to comprehend.

The scale of the files is staggering, but survivors said releasing millions of pages is not the same as delivering justice. They are still waiting for the Justice Department to release the remaining records, protect their identities and investigate viable leads involving alleged co-conspirators and enablers.

“Justice that stops when it reaches power is not justice,” survivor Sharlene Rochard said.

The thousands of bound volumes make that unfinished work impossible to ignore.

After completing its Dallas run, the Trump-Epstein Reading Room is back on the road.

Trump and DOJ’s Epstein Cover-Up Is Front of Mind for Voters Going into Midterms

PUBLISHED 9/10/2026 by

With just two months until the midterm elections, voters across party lines are looking for candidates who are willing to take on corruption, hold powerful abusers accountable and demand the full release of the Epstein files.

A new nationwide poll conducted by public opinion research firm GBAO and released Wednesday by COURIER and Reckoning Action found that 88 percent of Americans who plan to vote in the midterms, including 83 percent of Republican voters, will prioritize candidates who promise to hold powerful people accountable, including through the release of the full Epstein files. Justice for Epstein’s victims ranked higher for voters than almost every other issue, including healthcare, affordability, immigration, public safety and the Iran War.

Releasing the Epstein files became a national priority in 2025, as the Trump administration became engrossed in an apparent cover-up of the records, what they contained, and who they might implicate. The most grievous transgressions include secret meetings in the Situation Room; moving Epstein’s convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell to a low-security prison; holding a fake Epstein files release party with far-right media personalities; and closing its investigation into Epstein without additional prosecutions after a hasty review of less than 7 percent of the DOJ’s investigative files.

In lieu of executive accountability, the public turned to Congress. Pressure from voters grew so intense that the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA) passed with virtually unanimous support.

But the new polling suggests that voters may now turn to the ballot box to punish those they believe have failed to ensure the law is upheld. To date, only half of the 6 million records from the government’s case files on Epstein have been released, and the U.S. Department of Justice has failed to provide Congress with explanations for redactions and omissions as required by law.

The full release of the Epstein files will take a Congress willing to use its power to force the DOJ to comply with the law, as Attorney General Todd Blanche has stonewalled any attempts to do so. Senate Republicans approved Blanche’s nomination to his role in August, despite pleas from survivors of Epstein’s abuse to reject him. Blanche took lead on the Epstein investigation in 2025, members of Congress currently investigating his handling of the case say his priority has been to protect the president every step of the way.

(Editor’s note: The Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room—a traveling exhibit that organizes the 3.5 million pages of DOJ’s released Epstein files into 3,437 bound books—is on tour. Five cities will host the full Reading Room; the smaller Bookmobile will visit 20+ more along the way; read on for the full schedule.)

War on Women Report: Todd Blanche Is AG, Despite Pledge to Make Dobbs ‘Permanent’; Karen Attiah Is Back at WaPo (With Backpay); Rep. Cory Mills Loses Reelection After Abuse Allegations

PUBLISHED 9/1/2026 by and

MAGA Republicans are back in the White House, and Project 2025 is their guide, the right-wing plan to turn back the clock on women’s rights, remove abortion access, and force women into roles as wives and mothers in the “ideal, natural family structure.”

We know an empowered female electorate is essential to democracy. That’s why day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.

Since our last report:
—Under mounting pressure from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Scouting America eliminated dedicated community spaces for LGBTQ+ youth, girls and Scouts of color at its annual 2026 National Jamboree in West Virginia.
—An 18-year-old girl in North Carolina is facing criminal charges after allegedly taking abortion pills 31 weeks into her pregnancy, which prompted her to go into early labor.
—After a controversial two-day confirmation hearing in July, Todd Blanche has been confirmed as the new U.S. attorney general.
—In a win for domestic violence survivors, Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) lost his bid for reelection amid accusations of abuse from women he has dated.
—A groundbreaking new report documents dozens of federal immigration agents who have faced administrative disciplinary action or criminal penalties for violent crimes.
—Ohio’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) abruptly ended its policy allowing transgender residents to update the gender marker on their driver’s licenses and state IDs to match their gender identity. 
—Chicago mother Keshia Golden, who says she killed her boyfriend in self defense in 2022, accepted a plea deal for involuntary manslaughter, allowing her to avoid jail time.
—Karen Attiah, columnist for The Washington Post, has won her job back, after being fired last year for her comments on race, gender and violence in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death.

… and more.