Kim Kardashian. Rihanna. Cara Delevingne. They’re just three of the high-profile celebrities using their sizeable social media followings to draw attention to child sex slave Cyntoia Brown, whose tragic case is just starting to make global headlines – despite Brown already having spent the past 13 years in jail.
Now 29 years old, Brown was just 16 when she shot a 43-year-old Nashville man who had paid a pimp for her, driven her to his home and had sex with her. Prior to that, Brown had run away from her adopted home and ended up living with the pimp, named ‘Kut Throat’, who, along with multiple other men, news.com.au reports, raped and abused her.
“He would explain to me that some people were born whores, and that I was one, and I was a slut, and nobody’d want me but him, and the best thing I could do was just learn to be a good whore,” Brown testified, The New York Times reports.
Brown shot the 43-year-old who had bought her from Kut Throat after he rolled over in bed and she thought he was reaching for his gun. She then pulled out the handgun she had stashed in her bag.
When she faced court in 2006, Brown was tried as an adult and found guilty of first-degree murder and aggravated robbery and was handed a life sentence. She is currently serving her time at Tennessee Prison for Women, Nashville.
As news.com.au points out, had she been tried in 2017, Brown would have been classed a child sex trafficking victim. As it stands, she will not be eligible for parole until she is at least 67 years old.
“We are very, very appreciative of the fact that such an incredible number of celebrities would join our plea,” Brown’s pro bono lawyer, Charles Bone, told The New York Times. “She was thrilled by the fact that people really cared.”
No-one knows how the case attracted such high-profile eyes, although a local TV station Fox 17 aired a story on Brown last week.
