As the New York State Legislature reaches the end of its session, Epstein survivors are among those calling for enhanced protections for children who are 15 to 17 years old from sexual exploitation. Sharlene Rochard, who says the bill will close a loophole to match federal law, spoke to WAMC's Maryam Ahmad.
Maryam Ahmad: You are an outspoken advocate against child sexual exploitation. Why is this important to you?
Sharlene Rochard: People often imagine trafficking as kidnapping by a stranger. But what they don't realize is that many victims are groomed, manipulated, and exploited by people they trust. So, predators look for vulnerability and not birthdays. They're not like, “Oh, let me check your birth certificate and see how old you are before I exploit you.” So because I know how exploitation works, it often begins with trust, grooming, manipulation, and if sharing my experience helps strengthens protections for the next generation, then that's worth speaking out.
You mentioned that a lot of times it happens with people you trust. How did it end up happening to you? What is something that you want people to be aware of that they might not already know?
Well, it happened to me because, I trusted Jeffrey Epstein, and I ended up in his orbit and he's very manipulative, and coercive control was a big part of that. Grooming was a part of that. So, they'll often say things like, well, I can offer you some housing, or I can give you some money, or I can help you in your career, and all of these things seem like normal things, and they're of course things that you want. I was a model, and I was traveling in another country, and I needed help. However, all of those were grooming techniques, I learned, to bring me into the orbit of sex trafficking.
How old were you when this started?
So, I started modeling when I was 12, and I feel like just being in the modeling industry alone is a predatory place where predators like to prey because there are young girls traveling. But I started traveling extensively at the age of 16, and then it was shortly after that that I entered the world.
We're here to talk about the Victims Protection and Child Sex Buyer Accountability Act that's on the state assembly floor. Can you tell me a little bit about what this act seeks to do, and why it is specifically important to you?
One of the first things to remember about this bill is that this is not a political issue, this is a child protection issue. A child is a child until the age of 18, that's what the law recognizes, the age of 18, and federal law already recognizes minors under 18 as trafficking victims. But New York law should match that standard, so these adults who buy children should face serious consequences, and this is why this legislation is so important.
A child is a child, like I said, until the age of 18. There should never be different levels of protection based on whether a child is 14, 15, 16, 17, or until they're 18 years old. It's a child protection issue, and one thing to remember is that no child can legally consent to being commercially sexually exploited, and federal law already recognized that reality, and honestly, New York should too. Basically, when there's this loophole in the law, predators find them and they exploit them. Adults who exploit children should be held accountable, and exploiters, again, like I said, they just don't look at birth dates when they're choosing children, and our laws shouldn’t either.
There's obviously been a lot of spotlight and attention towards survivors like yourself on the national level. What are you hoping comes out of this?
Well, the work that I do as a legislative advocate is for the next generation, and this is all to make the next generation [have] a safe place. We want to make the world a safe place to live, and it's just not right now. There are so many loopholes like this one that need to be closed, and then it's just one more step, and then we have another step, and another step. But that's the reason why I am speaking out personally, because I have four kids, and I always say I'm doing this for my children, but I'm also doing it for everybody else's children as well. If we don't stop this, then it's just going to continue on, and these people, they use loopholes like this to get through the law and continue what they're doing.
