--- title: Tarana Burke on What We Can Learn From Cyntoia Brown's Story description: #MeToo founder Tarana Burke writes about what we can learn from Cyntoia Brown about the taboos of child sex trafficking in the U.S. canonical: https://time.com/5498905/tarana-burke-cyntoia-brown-clemency/ author: Tarana Burke article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-01-10T10:50:24.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T22:27:47.007Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Tarana Burke on What We Can Learn From Cyntoia Brown's Story og:description: The founder of #MeToo writes about our country's handling of sexual violence og:url: https://time.com/5498905/tarana-burke-cyntoia-brown-clemency/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt68ebf21abdc9b67d/698942f6e76ad27c64633f18/cyntoia-brown-milestone.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Cyntoia Brown Clemency Milestone og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Tarana Burke on What We Can Learn From Cyntoia Brown's Story twitter:description: The founder of #MeToo writes about our country's handling of sexual violence twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt68ebf21abdc9b67d/698942f6e76ad27c64633f18/cyntoia-brown-milestone.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Tarana Burke on What We Can Learn From Cyntoia Brown's Story by [Tarana Burke](https://time.com/author/tarana-burke/) ## Tarana Burke Jan 10, 2019 10:50 AM UTC  Cyntoia Brown, a woman serving a life sentence for killing a man when she was a 16-year-old prostitute, enters her clemency hearing Wednesday, May 23, 2018, at Tennessee Prison for Women in Nashville, Tenn. Cyntoia Brown, a woman serving a life sentence for killing a man when she was a 16-year-old prostitute, enters her clemency hearing Wednesday, May 23, 2018, at Tennessee Prison for Women in Nashville, Tenn.Lacy Atkins—The Tennessean/AP by [Tarana Burke](https://time.com/author/tarana-burke/) ## Tarana Burke Jan 10, 2019 10:50 AM UTC When we talk about survivors of sexual violence, there’s a picture people tend to paint. They don’t think about young women like Cyntoia Brown, who was pulled into sex work as a child and, at 16, found herself in a position where she took the life of somebody else to save her own. Now 30, she has spent nearly half her life in prison. It sounds unbelievable that a child who was trafficked would receive essentially a life sentence. But when you see someone like Cyntoia as an adult and a criminal, not as a child and a victim, your orientation to the crime is different. If we’re going to address the issue of sexual violence, people have to understand what we’re dealing with. Talking about Cyntoia Brown opens up space to talk about what’s happening under our noses, every day, all around us. It took a lot of work to get her this clemency, granted on Jan. 7 by outgoing Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam. It took [organizing en masse](https://freecyntoiabrown.org/) to get one victory. But there are so many Cyntoia Browns around the country. My hope is that her story will shine a light on this problem. _Burke, a 2018 TIME 100 honoree, founded the #MeToo movement_ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5498905/tarana-burke-cyntoia-brown-clemency/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5498905/tarana-burke-cyntoia-brown-clemency/"},"headline":"Tarana Burke on What We Can Learn From Cyntoia Brown's Story","datePublished":"2019-01-10T10:50:24.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T22:27:47.007Z","description":"#MeToo founder Tarana Burke writes about what we can learn from Cyntoia Brown about the taboos of child sex trafficking in the U.S.","url":"https://time.com/5498905/tarana-burke-cyntoia-brown-clemency/","keywords":["society"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt68ebf21abdc9b67d/698942f6e76ad27c64633f18/cyntoia-brown-milestone.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tarana Burke","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/tarana-burke/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt68ebf21abdc9b67d/698942f6e76ad27c64633f18/cyntoia-brown-milestone.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Cyntoia Brown Clemency Milestone","caption":"Cyntoia Brown, a woman serving a life sentence for killing a man when she was a 16-year-old prostitute, enters her clemency hearing Wednesday, May 23, 2018, at Tennessee Prison for Women in Nashville, Tenn.","creditText":"Lacy Atkins—The Tennessean/AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/society/","name":"society"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5498905/tarana-burke-cyntoia-brown-clemency/","name":"Tarana Burke on What We Can Learn From Cyntoia Brown's Story"}}]}] ```