LIVERMORE (KRON)—Sex crimes victim advocates are welcoming the charges filed this week against seven Bay Area officers.

At the center of the sex scandal, 19-year-old Celeste Guap, who was a minor at the time of some of the allegations.

A former Livermore police officer is one of the seven charged.

KRON4’s Hermela Aregawi spoke to a sexual abuse advocate about this case.

Vanessa Russell is also a sexual abuse survivor.

One of the things she says makes it difficult for a survivor is how she or he is perceived and part of what complicates that is what the victims themselves say.

Russell runs a Bay Area nonprofit that helps survivors like her and like Celeste Guap.

“Absolutely Celeste Guap is a victim,” Russell said. “She is a victim of child rape. She’s a victim of exploitation of human trafficking because a child cannot consent to sex.

“Even if she was an adult, the mere fact of her being subjected to an authority figure using their influence to have sex with her to engage in sexual acts is an inappropriate use of power and should never be allowed.”

Russell says like Guap, a lot of survivors refer to themselves as a prostitute or call girl. She says it is one of many coping mechanism victims use.

“It’s very normal for a victim to associate or call themselves a prostitute or a call girl or escort because those terms have been normalized in the world that they’re in,” she said.

“Whatever that horrific thing is that that they’re keeping tucked deep down inside. They’ve convinced themselves what they’re doing is normal.

“Perhaps the law enforcement officer was a boyfriend, or he was a cute guy or he was just somebody she was flirting with but all of those are just tactics that people use to cope with the abuse that they’ve endured.”

Russell says Celeste Guap is facing a long road to recovery,but she says it’s possible for her to eventually move forward.

She says a key part of that is the public keeping in mind that she was a child when some of these allegations happened.

Russell says she thinks the conversation is moving in that direction.