Sex trafficking in fashion: Journalist slams French legal system for inaction
Journalist and author Dana Thomas criticizes French law enforcement and the fashion industry for decades of failure to address sexual exploitation, highlighting systemic impunity.
Dana Thomas, a Paris-based journalist specializing in fashion and culture, has delivered a scathing critique of the French legal system and the fashion industry for their failure to tackle sexual exploitation. She notes that allegations of sexual abuse in fashion have resurfaced repeatedly over decades, often involving powerful figures whose deaths have complicated judicial accountability. Following the sudden death of Daniel Siad, Thomas argues that predatory behavior was neither hidden nor exceptional but widely understood within the industry, yet institutions consistently failed to investigate or prosecute.
Drawing on her own experience as a model and a sexual assault victim in Paris in the early 1980s, Thomas asserts that an enduring ecosystem has allowed trafficking, exploitation, institutional inertia, and elite impunity to reinforce each other across generations. She describes the situation as outrageous, emphasizing that the French legal system has taken no meaningful action to address these systemic issues.
