Victoria Roberts

Absolutely. Few of these children come from well-ordered, loving supportive families.

Iam many are victims of their parents before they become victims of others.

Well said iam64

Failed in my decision to leave this discussion.
The description of girls (or boys) trafficked, groomed into being sexually exploited as ‘prostitutes’ is so far from reality. I realise I’m wasting my time here but to have the suffering and exploitation of vulnerable young people described in this way is something that should be challenged.
MOnica’s comparison with the children subject to child sexual exploitation is accurate. Some still describe those young people as the author of their own abuse.

What is irritating me is that she is being described by the press as a sex slave, when she herself said that she was paid a daily rate by Epstein and 200 dollars extra for sex.
That is not a sex slave but a prostitute.
She stayed with him for two years until she 19 and was living the high life, I'm pretty certain that she could have walked away whenever she wanted.
She has probably hidden her grubby past for years, until the "Me too" saga.
It's all to do with $$$$$$

It also reminds me of the grooming and exploitation of many girls in this country in Rochdale and Oxford and other towns .

Pubescent girls, vulnerable because of abuse or because they come from dysfunctional families and easy prey for anyone who seems to appreciate them, make them feel good, offered everything, which they take and soon realise how they are expected to pay for their 'good luck'

This woman's story is very similar to many of thse told by girls in the towns I mentioned as others.

Anniebach - most fathers are very protective of their 16 year old daughters. It seems her father did nothing to protect her throughout her youth, and is then heard on TV criticising all these 'bad people' for what they did to her. What jaw dropping hypocrisy.

When I was 15, in the school choir, we were asked to sing at an evening Chapel concert. I lived in a village 3 miles from town, no bus that evening. The headmaster offered to give me a lift home.

Missed the concert, my father said NO.

I agree Jabberwok the whole thing smacks of ££££s.

I find it quite extraordinary even in those far off days, that a father would hand over his 16 year old daughter to a virtual stranger to be taught to be a Masseur! Remembering my own step fathers beady watchful eye when I was that age, I find this young lady's fathers attitude very odd! -money?!!! Just a thought!

Lawyers = £ £ £ £

I`m with Anniebach on this one.
Monice Lewinsky springs to mind tbh.
The £sign speaks volumes.

I forgot to add....her father also said in his interview that he knew nothing about her being abused before PA because she was a very good actress which was probably not a good thing to say when she has just gone public with her side of the story.

Iam64 - I also saw the interview with her father where he said he met Epstein and in effect handed over his 16 year old daughter to the multi-millionaire for training as a masseuse. He didn't seem to think this was odd at the time. He never mentioned in his interview that she was abused from the age of 7 or had been homeless as a young teenager which she said in her interview. I was shocked because as her father this man should have been protecting her, and yet he now has the gall to come on TV and comment on the awful things that happened to her with PA. What about what happened to her as a child??? Where was he then???

Virginia defended Epstein by claiming he had an illness

I did watch the programme. This, coupled with all that I’ve read recently, makes me believe that she was ignorantly complicit during the alleged events but has since been made aware of how her experience amounted to abuse. I suggest her obvious distress on camera is not acting but an anger, probably part directed at herself. When viewing something with hindsight, it is easy to fall into the role of victim, particularly if that hindsight suggests a lack of control or manipulation by others. If she did have sex in the UK at 17 it may have been ‘unfortunate’ but it wasn’t trafficked abuse. But laws are different elsewhere - perhaps something subliminally encouraging her uncertainty about locations.

I thought of Jeffery Epstein.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW_zi8n4HDQ

Here you go, M0nica

Iam I didn’t mean to upset/annoy you.

I can’t help thinking what Leon Brittan and others suffered.

You defended Christine Keeler, she had been abused as a child, but there was also Mandy Rice Davies.

Anyone remember Flanders and Swann? And the song 'Have some madeira my dear'.

I heard it recently and although in these Me too times it is not appropriate to revive but it starts

^She was young, she was pure
She was new, she was nice
She was fair, she was sweet seventeen^

^He was old, he was vile
And no stranger to vice
He was base, he was bad, he was mean^

I would like to post the whole lyric but it is too long, but you can see why, when I heard it, I thought of PA.

Don't bow out, Iam. You have professional knowledge and experience which is helpful to those of us scratching our heads.

A thought provoking post Iam and there's a lot to what you've said, I just think it odd that she would make money out of a photograph from an incident in her life, that she later realised was abuse.

Disassociation is common amongst trafficked people. I’ll bow out now.

But she said how horrific it was at the time so surely saw it as abuse , if it did happen, we don’t know

We know very little about VG other than that she alleges she was sexually abused at 7 and developed emotional/psychological problems, became a run away. She was living with her father at 15 when G Maxwell picked her up outside her high school, introduced her to JEpstein and said they'd train her to be a massage therapist. I saw a recent interview with her father in which he said he was shown around JE's home and felt his daughter was fortunate to have been chosen for training. He says he now regrets allowing this to happen.

None of us know why VG kept the photograph but I don't find it at all surprising that someone with her experiences kept a photograph of someone she was trafficked to. As others have said, she doesn't look cowed or anxious in that photograph. That shouldn't surprise anyone. Children and young people are vulnerable to grooming, it seems she was. She didn't see it as abuse at the time. That doesn't mean it wasn't abuse.