rom the earliest days of European expansion, colonialism was never just about borders or trade. It was a system of domination that reached into the most intimate spaces of life. Across Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas, colonial authorities routinely exploited colonised women and girls. This was not a scattering of individual crimes; it was a structural feature of the empire. Racial hierarchy, legal impunity and economic dependency created conditions in which exploitation could flourish.Victims had nowhere to turn to. Sexual domination was woven into the fabric of colonial rule.

This history is central to what Walter D Mignolo calls coloniality: the enduring logic of power that survives long after formal empires fall. Coloniality is not the persistence of empire itself, but of the worldview that made empire possible—a worldview in which some lives are protected and others are expendable. Modernity’s promise of progress, Mignolo argues, has always had a darkside.

To understand how this logic persists, one must recognise the four structural encroachments colonialism imposed. First was economic control: entire economies were re-organised to serve distant metropoles. Second was control over foreign policy: colonised regions were told who to fight, who to befriend and who to trade with. Third was division: colonial administrations inflamed differences and manufactured new ones, leaving fractures that endure today. Fourth was dehumanisation: colonised peoples were cast as inferior, uncivilised and unworthy of moral concern. This ideology justified exploitation on a vast scale.

Coloniality differs from colonialism in form, not function. First, the coloniser of the past was readily identifiable; today the identity is diffuse. Second, states still dominate, but so do multinational corporations, financial institutions and armed groups. Third, the states are still involved, but they, with other groups, can only colonise their own people. Fourth, one region can be colonised by several states and groups. Together, they can control one region concurrently and collaboratively.

This is why Mignolo insists that coloniality is the dark side of Western modernity: the hidden architecture that sustains global hierarchies even when the language of empire has faded. In recent years, Western officials themselves have begun to acknowledge that the post‑1945 rules‑based international order is under strain. At major security conferences in Europe, senior diplomats from France, Germany, the United States, besides others have openly expressed concern that the system of norms that once governed global affairs is fragmenting. Their language, perhaps unintentionally, echoes Mignolo’s argument: that the visible architecture of global governance is only part of the story. Much of what shapes the world happens in spaces shielded from public scrutiny.

It is in this context that the Epstein Files take on a significance far beyond the crimes of one man. The allegations against Jeffrey Epstein—of abusing underage girls and facilitating their exploitation—are horrifying on their own. But viewed through the lens of coloniality, they reveal something more profound about how power operates today. Epstein moved through elite networks with ease, shielded by wealth, influence and secrecy. The victims—young, precarious, isolated—were left exposed. The asymmetry is painfully familiar.

The comparison with colonial sexual exploitation is not literal but structural. In both cases, domination is enabled by hierarchy: the vast imbalance of power between perpetrators and victims. In colonial settings, European men exploited colonised women and girls because the system granted them authority and denied victims protection. In the Epstein case, the victims were similarly vulnerable. The perpetrators operated from positions of wealth and social insulation. The logic of exploitation through asymmetry is recognisable, even if the contexts differ.

Another continuity lies in dehumanisation. Colonial sexual exploitation, as described by Anne McClintock in her classic work Imperial Leather, along with several other authors, shows that colonial ideologies portrayed colonised people as less human and less worthy of moral concern. Their suffering did not register as fully human. In the Epstein case, victims were treated as commodities—objects to be used, exchanged or manipulated. Their humanity was secondary to the desires of those with power. This is not identical to colonial racism, but it echoes the same logic: that certain bodies matter less.

A third continuity is the presence of networks of protection. Colonial officials were rarely punished for sexual crimes; the system shielded them. In the Epstein case, the most disturbing element is not only the abuse but the protection surrounding it: lenient legal treatment, sealed documents, powerful associates and institutional reluctance to confront the full scope of the network. With millions of pages of documents, images and videos still undisclosed, the sense of a protected world operating beyond public scrutiny is hard to ignore.

Finally, both systems rely on secrecy. Colonial exploitation thrived in spaces the public could not see—plantations, military outposts, administrative compounds. The Epstein network operated in private islands, exclusive residences, private jets and elite social circles. Secrecy was not incidental; it was essential.

The point is not that Epstein was a colonial ruler or that his associates were engaged in geopolitical domination. The point is that the logic that allowed colonial exploitation to flourish—the logic of hierarchy, impunity, secrecy and dehumanisation—has not disappeared. It has migrated into new forms, new networks and new spaces. Previously, the targets were the Others; now the imperial cat is eating its own kittens.

Mignolo argues that de-coloniality begins with “epistemic disobedience:” the refusal to accept official narratives at face value, the willingness to question the stories power tells about itself. The Epstein Files, unsettling as they are, demand precisely that. They force us to confront the uncomfortable truth that the world is still organised in ways that privilege a small elite while leaving others vulnerable. They show that empire never truly ended. It simply learned to operate in the dark—and to trust that most people would never dare to switch on the light.

The writer works as a principal clinical psychologist in the Republic of Ireland. He can be contacted at [email protected].