Sex Culture and the Unheard

      
       In 2012, the International Labor Organization estimated that there are 20.9 million human trafficking victims worldwide. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, sexual exploitation is the most commonly identified form ahead of forced labor. Numbers released by the National Human Trafficking Resource Center suggest that also holds true in the U.S., where more than 4,000 cases of sex trafficking were reported. And as a whole human trafficking is a lucrative industry that around the globe rakes in $150 billion. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/how-sex-trafficking-goes-unnoticed-in-america/470166/
    
      Cyntoia Brown is just one story out of this multi-billion dollar business that at the age of 16 she was tried as an adult, and sentenced to life in prison for killing her 43 year old rapist. Brown's pimp was nicknamed Cutthroat during her trial in 2004, Brown testified that she was choked, beaten and raped frequently in her home and threatened at gunpoint. Brown has now spent 13 years behind bars because the justice system never saw her as a victim. She was never seen as a child being held captive by a pimp. Brown was treated as a murdering prostitute, and was tried as such. How can you be the victim of sex trafficking, and end up in a prison filled with adults, and hardened criminals? It was not until after Brown's trial, and a documentary was made did Tennessee law change regarding children being charged as adults.
 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/celebrities-justice-sex-trafficking-victim-cyntoia-brown-article-1.3649079

     Brown's trial also speaks to color status, and privilege in this country. For example, in Cleveland when Amanda Berry was found after 10 years. The majority of the world cannot remember that there were also two other women held captive with her let alone know their names. Gina Dejesus and Michelle Knight were almost invisible next to Berry. Dejesus a person of color, and Knight a poor white girl that no one seemed to miss. Even though all three girls were held against their wills beaten tortured, and raped daily by a psycho; only one girl seemed to grab America's attention more, and that was Amanda Berry.

   "People who are having sex with children are not johns and tricks.They are child rapists, and pedophiles so we should call them what they are." -Jada Pinkett Smith

     It is up to us to change the narrative and stop criminalizing the victim. Our children are suffering because sex culture, and money speaks louder than the cries of children being held in sex slavery.
Cyntoia Brown's case has recently caught attention through social media, and certain celebrities like Rhianna and Kim Khardashian. They and others are asking for the release of Brown immediately. There is also a petition with the hashtag #FreeCyntoiaBrown that was started and it has already garnered more than 200,000 signatures.