The crimes of Epstein, Trump, and their ilk are only the most recent representatives of a class that has profited from the exploitation and abuse of human bodies since the rise of chattel slavery and the capitalist system that it sustained. While the law and moral attitudes have changed over centuries, there has never been a real confrontation, nor any meaningful end to systemic human trafficking. Open-air slave markets still exist in parts of the world. Immigration status is weaponized to force people into indentured servitude. And powerful men and women continue to profit from sex trafficking years after Epstein’s death.

While the crimes committed against children are uniquely heinous, as socialists we must acknowledge that this is not an aberration nor the unintended consequence of wealth accumulation. In fact, the abuse of children is a fundamental feature of settler colonialism-capitalism. It is a key component of the violence used to steal land and resources from Indigenous people. We can see this perpetuated throughout generations, from Indigenous or Black children stolen from their families and forced into chains, residential schools or foster systems, to Palestinian children locked in Israeli military prisons, and children sitting in ICE concentration camps right now. Under capitalism, the physical and sexual abuse of children is politically motivated and structurally enabled.

It’s no coincidence that the ongoing European colonial projects in the Americas, Australia and Palestine all share the same systemic strategy of parent/child separation and degrading abuse. It is no coincidence that Epstein’s trafficking operation was headquartered on a privately owned Caribbean island, nor that his activities were aided and covered up by more than one settler-colonial government, and capitalist financial institution. It is no coincidence that Epstein’s first public victim was a trans woman who was vilified by the media and disregarded by the courts.

The victims of the Epstein trafficking ring aren’t isolated from other people the ruling class keeps intentionally exploitable: the marginalized, the undocumented, the homeless, the incarcerated and in fact, the whole of the global working class. Capitalism debases all of humanity for the profit and pleasure of the ruling class. The ideology of settler-colonialism perpetuates violent ownership, extraction, exploitation, and separation of people from the land, from one another, and from their own autonomy.

This is why DSA fights to overthrow this system of oppression and replace it with one of collective benefit and community care. As socialists, we seek to build a world free from exploitation and abuse of all kinds: economic, physical or sexual. Our struggles for liberation are intimately intertwined. To anyone who wants to take up the fight against the abusive ruling class, to protect women, children and workers all over the world, join us in the fight for socialism!