Ayanna Pressley

Calling it a long-overdue step toward justice, U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-7th District, on Tuesday joined two House colleagues to unveil a first-of-its-kind bill creating a restitution fund for survivors of sexual violence.

The bill seeks to provide financial relief to individuals whose rights were violated by the federal government, including survivors of abuse perpetrated by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, according to Pressley’s office.

“The financial, physical, and emotional trauma that survivors of sexual violence carry is a lifetime sentence,” the Boston lawmaker said during a Capitol Hill news conference on Tuesday. “By no choice of their own, survivors can incur debilitating costs due to medical needs, lost income, housing instability, and mental health support.

As it’s currently written, the bill would create a new Survivors’ Rights Restitution Program, which would provide compensation to eligible victims for harm and losses.

It also would establish an independent Office of Special Adjudicators for Survivors Restitution within the U.S. Court of Federal Claims to review petitions through a trauma-informed, nonadversarial process, according to Pressley’s office.

To finance these awards, a restitution fund would be created within the Department of the Treasury, utilizing federal forfeiture proceeds from trafficking and sexual exploitation offenses alongside voluntary contributions and authorized appropriations.

The bill calls for a minimum payout of $123,000 for survivors, based on federal estimates regarding the lifetime economic burden of such crimes, the Boston Globe reported.

“Far too often, the federal government has been complicit and failed to meet its moral and legal obligation to fight for accountability and relieve this economic burden,” Pressely, a sexual assault survivor, said. “Our bill would change that by holding our government, abusers, and their co-conspirators to account and helping our survivors get on a pathway to healing. The ignored burden that survivors carry is a stain in our legal system and must be addressed immediately.”

U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, D-N.M., a cosponsor of the bill who joined Pressley at the news conference, underlined the need for government accountability.

“Survivors should never have to pay the price when our government fails to protect them,” she said. “For too long, survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s horrific abuse were denied justice while powerful people were protected. That failure has real costs: lost wages, medical bills, housing instability, and trauma that can last a lifetime.”

U.S. Rep. Deborah Ross, D-N.C., the bill’s other main cosponsor, echoed these sentiments.

“Far too often, we have seen our government fail survivors of sexual violence who have risked everything to come forward,” Ross said Tuesday. “Trauma is often just one part of the burden survivors carry, and it is often compounded by lost income, housing insecurity, and economic hardship. We have seen this play out in the administration’s treatment of survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s abuse, who have been dismissed and demonized.

“Sex trafficking survivors are often asked to take enormous risks to report their abuse and cooperate with the justice system, only to find that the same institutions demanding their trust can fail to protect their rights,” Becca Zipkin, Vice President of Policy and Programs for World Without Exploitation, said.

“The Survivors’ Rights Restitution Act is an important step toward that goal by giving survivors a meaningful path to redress when the federal government violates their rights,” Zipkin said.