Every few months, another revelation from the Epstein files or new accusations in the sprawling investigations surrounding Sean “Diddy” Combs shocks the country. The headlines spark outrage. We debate accountability, parse who knew what and when, and demand justice for the victims.
For millions of women living with the aftermath of sexual violence, the national conversation stops exactly where their needs begin.
Nearly one in three women — 840 million globally — have experienced partner or sexual violence, and 27.6 million are living in conditions of modern slavery, better known as sex trafficking, with women and girls disproportionately affected.
While public attention tends to focus on the moment of abuse or the powerful men accused, far less attention is paid to what comes after.
I know this because I lived it. At 18, I was groomed by a man who saw my trauma and used it to pull me into a world of control. What began as affection quickly turned violent — forced prostitution, beatings, rape and threats at gunpoint from New Jersey throughout D.C. and Northern Virginia. Abuse early in life left me vulnerable to a trafficker who recognized what I didn’t: unresolved trauma creates an opening for predators.
It was after a near-fatal attack that I realized my son’s safety depended on me leaving. Unfortunately, my story is not rare.
For survivors, the harm doesn’t end when the abuse stops. It often deepens. Studies show that trauma such as sexual violence is among the most likely to lead to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, with more than half of trafficking survivors developing the condition, and survivors of trafficking often experiencing very high rates of depression and anxiety for years afterward.
Yet PTSD isn’t on the radar for many experiencing it or the providers treating them. As a result, symptoms go undiagnosed and untreated, making healing from trauma even harder. In practice, survivors are often handed tools designed for other issues, such as domestic abuse, rather than care that reflects their lived reality.
Because prostitution is criminalized, many of the harms we experience are minimized or overlooked, and our exploitation is mischaracterized as a choice rather than recognized as trauma. Survivors need comprehensive treatment and sustained access to care, yet too often we are offered outdated or ill-fitting solutions.
It’s been 25 years since the FDA approved a new treatment for PTSD. Today, only two drugs — both selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (antidepressants) — are approved to treat PTSD, yet they fail to deliver meaningful, lasting relief for most patients and often involve significant side effects. Most survivors have cycled through therapies that don’t work for them, dropped out of care altogether, or never gained access in the first place. Communities with some of the highest rates of violence often have the fewest resources to access mental and physical healthcare providers. And women of color face even steeper barriers.
This is where the real scandal lies.
As the public reckons — again — with how powerful individuals and institutions concealed abuse for decades, we cannot allow outrage to substitute for reform. Exposing perpetrators matters. Accountability matters. But without modern trauma care, survivors are left trapped in a system that hasn’t meaningfully evolved.
The FDA can change that by fast-tracking the evaluation and approval of next-generation, rapid-acting and durable medicines for PTSD. We need timelines that reflect the reality of survivors’ lives and the urgency that their crisis demands, faster than the usual bureaucratic inertia. And we need expanded access for those most at risk: women living at the intersection of trauma, poverty and systemic discrimination.
Policy reform won’t erase what happened to me or the women whose stories dominate today’s headlines. However, modern, accessible trauma care would shorten the distance between victimization and healing. It would reduce vulnerability to further exploitation. And it would save lives.
Before becoming director of the Virginia Anti-Human Trafficking Office, I advised federal agencies, state task forces and national coalitions on combating exploitation. Long before that, I was a young woman surviving trauma I couldn’t yet name. What I learned, first as a survivor, later as a policymaker, is that escaping didn’t end the fight. It simply began a different one.
Survivors have always carried the burden of rebuilding ourselves. We do the work. We show up. We fight to reclaim our futures. Now, in a moment when the public is finally confronting the scale of abuse that powerful individuals and institutions concealed for decades, it is on all of us to demand more for post-abuse care.
Without reform, attention will fade, leaving survivors stuck in a trauma-care system that hasn’t meaningfully evolved in decades. Justice isn’t just accountability; it’s insisting that regulators finally allow access to new, evidence-based treatments for trauma.