by Xu Chi
GENEVA, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- Cyntoia Brown, a victim of child trafficking whose case once aroused widespread controversy in the United States, has recounted her experience and criticized the ineffective U.S. justice system and the profit-driven prisons in a recent interview with Xinhua.
In 2014, Brown, at the age of 16, ran away from a youth correctional facility in Tennessee. A man with a criminal record verbally, physically and sexually assaulted her before forcing her into sex work.
One night, a man propositioned her. At his house, Brown, who was sixteen at the time, was shown his collection of firearms, and she was unnerved. Later in the darkness of the night, Brown was lying in bed when she was surprised by the man's forceful hand. Brown was panicked and shot him dead. The next day, she called the police, who later kept Brown in custody but set the trafficker free.
"Throughout the whole process, I've not just been stripped of dignity but of the strength of my voice. I had no say. I had no credibility to anything that I was saying: what had happened to me is like my experience didn't matter ... and anything I did get the opportunity to say was automatically used in the worst possible way against me," Brown recalled about the trial.
The teenager was sentenced to life in prison. Brown said she blamed herself for a decade until "someone who had a similar experience, who had overcome that experience" let her know she was a victim of human trafficking.
After 15 years in prison, Brown regained her freedom after her case sparked public outrage, and celebrities across the United States voiced support for her release. Since then, she has helped other victims of the U.S. justice system and human trafficking.
Having experienced it firsthand, Brown spoke out against the United States' ineffective criminal justice system. In the interview, she took the prisons' rehabilitative services as an example.
"I can tell you that there is very little being done in terms of providing rehabilitative services to individuals who are incarcerated," she said, adding the prisons are only interested in getting federal funding by pretending to offer rehabilitative programs.
Regarding prison labor, Brown said every detainee has to work, no matter how harsh and unbearable the work is. The pay cannot even cover the cost of daily necessities in prison.
Compared to prison labor, the privatization of prisons' public services is much worse, said Brown.
Noting public prison commissioners earn a six-figure annual salary because of the privatization of basic services, Brown said the profit-driven business actually kills inmates.
"I had an issue with my knee, and I had to fight for years to get my knee looked at, and it was just cheaper to give me ice and ibuprofen, but I ended up having to have surgery for a torn ACL in my knee, and it took two years for me to actually get in to have that done," she recalled.
"I have someone that I'm advocating for now who went in (prison). She had fibroids in her uterus, and they performed a procedure, and they performed it so recklessly, so negligently that they actually injured her during the surgery," she said.
"I've seen that time and time again, and it all happens because ... they (the prisons) can't make a big enough profit if they're spending all these thousands of dollars on giving you the care that you need," she said. ■
