Holy cow, I haven’t even been following that and didn’t realize her trial happened already. I saw a docuseries on Epstein but don’t know the details of Maxwell’s trial. I do hope, though, that their arrangement clues women into the fact that, yes, trafficking doesn’t have to look like slavery at all.

I think as a kid, I was generically taught to be suspicious of women I didn’t know and that these people might be kidnappers, but when I made the transition to adolescence and adulthood, I was taught only to be suspicious of guys, and not of female age-peers, and while I was taught about the danger of rape, I wasn’t taught that a female “friend” could orchestrate the danger. Ghislaine Maxwell was substantially older than a lot of her victims, but I hope regardless that her trial helps to shed light on the fact that female “friends” — not just older, unknown women — can sometimes pose a danger too.