021 - Survivor Story: Cyntoia Brown Long
This survivor story episode covers manipulation, grooming, societal pressures, and broken expectations. Cyntoia Brown is a name you may have heard in 2019 when social media hashtag #freecyntoiabrown was shared by Kerry Washington and Kim Kardashian while Cyntoia served a life sentence for killing a man who had purchased her for sex when she was 16. Cyntoia has been on 20/20, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, The Today Show, her story has been featured in a Netflix documentary, and she even wrote an autobiography. You can learn all of the details about her case and trial with a Google search.
Cyntoia will share about:
Her transition out of prison
How trafficking became a part of her story
How she didn't identify as a trafficking victim at first
How she came to realize she was trafficked while in prison.
There are so many parts of her teenage experience that are incredibly important when we seek to understand how youth vulnerability plays a huge role in trafficking and how to work to prevent it.
As always, we want to hear from survivors about hope and what's next for them. Since 2019, Cyntoia has gotten married, has started the JFAM Foundation, which has spurred The G.L.I.T.T.E.R. Project and The Y.E.S. Council, both of which you'll hear more about in this episode. We were blown away by Cyntoia's strong faith in God, despite all the difficult parts of her personal history, and the ways in which her completely unique experience has so many parallels to those of the youth Marissa works with daily.
Resources from this episode:
What Is 13?: The What Is 13 campaign was created by End Slavery Tennessee to raise awareness about the average age of entry for a child into human trafficking. This advertising campaign partnered with members of local, state and federal government, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and other notable Tennesseans to promote ESTN’s approach to confronting human trafficking in Tennessee.
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This podcast is brought to you by End Slavery Tennessee.
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Show transcript
Executive Producers: Stacy Elliott & Marissa Brownell
Producer: Gregory Byerline
Engineer: Claire Bidigare-Curtis
Host: Leslie Eiler Thompson
Original Music: Zach & Maggie White