Summary: Stars are calling online for a former child prostitute to be freed from prison.
In 2004, 16-year-old Cyntoia Brown shot and killed the 43-year-old man who bought her for sex. She was tried as an adult and sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder.
Now celebrities such as Rihanna and Kim Kardashian are rallying online to free Cyntoia Brown, according to Buzzfeed.
“Did we somehow change the definition of #JUSTICE along the way??” Rihanna wrote on Instagram on Tuesday. “Something is horribly wrong when the system enables these rapists and the victim is thrown away for life! To each of you responsible for this child’s sentence I hope to God you don’t have children, because this could be your daughter being punished for punishing already!”
“The system has failed,” Kardashian West also wrote on Tuesday. “It’s heart breaking to see a young girl sex trafficked then when she has the courage to fight back is jailed for life! We have to do better & do what’s right. I’ve called my attorneys yesterday to see what can be done to fix this. #FreeCyntoiaBrown”
Brown, now 29, first had her story captured in the 2011 documentary Me Facing Life: Cyntoia’s Story. The film explored her case and what it was like being the victim of child sex trafficking.
Brown is appealing her case in the US Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit and her lawyers plan to ask Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam for clemency.
Brown’s attorney, Charles Bone, said he is unsure why celebrities have turned their attention to Brown’s case, but he said that any attention is welcome.
“This issue, in general, is worthy of a lot of publicity especially in the culture in which we live today,” Bone said to BuzzFeed News. “And we think the fact that Cyntoia happens to be the child that is the subject of all of the publicity in the last 24 hours is wonderful. Obviously, she is not a child anymore, but she was sentenced as a child.”
When Brown was a teenager, she was trafficked for sex by a man named Cut Throat who fed her drugs and pimped her out to various people. One of the men was 43-year-old Johnny Mitchell Allen, who Brown ended up shooting and stealing money from in order to escape.
Prosecutors said that Brown intended to rob Allen, but Brown said that she was trying to escape and get enough money to not return to Cut Throat.
Brown was referred to as a “teen prostitute” by the courts, and Derri Smith, CEO of End Slavery Tennessee, said that she should never have been convicted of murder because she was clearly a victim herself.
“She never would have gotten life had she been tried today,” Smith told BuzzFeed News. “It’s a case that absolutely needs to be reexamined in light of what we understand today about complex trauma and human trafficking. She was referred to incessantly in her original case as a teen prostitute. There’s no such thing as a teen prostitute. She was a human trafficking victim.”
Source: Buzzfeed News