Many of the female survivors who were preyed on by sex offender, Jefferey Epstein, had their identities released and shown to the public by the Department of Justice (DOJ); even with the department vowing to protect their identities. The vow specifically was an agreement that the DOJ had with the survivors about not releasing any leakage of any “private information.” 

This was wrong, as the private information was recently released to the public in the latest group of Epstein files. Leaving 300 women feeling exposed and feeling as if their whole lives are being turned upside down.

The DOJ had not done the best job in redacting the personal information, as they had purposefully even outed several women who were seen at the time as “Jane Doe” and who had hoped to stay that way, and were instead seen in the files. These individuals are women who are still having a difficult time reliving the past; rather,  it was unacknowledged.

However, they were caught wrong once again, with the release of the women’s names and personal information. 

With Epstein survivors full of rage after seeing the DOJs releasement of unredacted names, as Liz Stein and many other survivors had spoken out about how they and other women are determined to fight against the DOJ’s blatant misregard over the names of these women. All carrying this feeling of it being intentional, as they believed the system that was supposed to protect you betrays you. 

Junior Afia Alam said about the subject, “I think this display of arrogance is a control tactic, after many beg for the files to be released for the sake of protecting victims, they turn it around onto the victims heads to shame and harass them.”Additionally,  building this idea of how the government was pictured as being this field of protection, but the protection is falling apart. Alam spoke more about the government’s actions in “not protecting its citizens, rather its officials.” 

But with the un-redacted names, there was this underlying factor that the predators of the situation are being protected rather than the women who suffered and had been traumatized from this situation. As the DOJ had released images of the victims’ faces and redacted the predators who assaulted them. Which is beginning to scare many other women to come forward, as the justice department is building this idea of not having the justice system it hoped to be. 

Senior Johnny Opp said, “Hearing that the Justice system failed to protect these women makes it harder to fully trust it.” Opp spoke more about the subject by adding, “The justice system is supposed to defend people’s rights and safety, and it broke that responsibility.” 

The attorneys of some of the survivors had sent letters to the DOJ writing about the failure to protect redacted victims, and their information had triggered an “emergency.” As they have also spoken with two federal judges in New York for a “Judicial intervention.” Not only had Attorneys spoken up, but also anonymous victims who spoke in the letter about receiving death threats and harassment from the media since the release of the names. 

In response to the outcry towards the DOJ, they had removed all documents that either the victims or lawyers had identified with anything regarding their names and other personal information.  

However, something to sit on is that in this dump of information about the Epstein files, the total amount of documentation counts up to 3.5 million pages, on top of 2,000 videos, and 180,000 images, according to NBC News. However, it is still said that most of the information regarding Epstein hasn’t been released yet.