Artists, celebrities, and civil rights advocates are bringing renewed attention to the case of Cyntoia Brown, a sex trafficking victim who’s serving life in prison for killing one of the men who purchased her when she was a 16-year-old child.

“Her story,” writes journalist Dave A. Love, “is the story of what is wrong with America, with its criminal justice system, and the way it treats its children—its most vulnerable Black girls.”

Rashad Robinson, executive director of Color of Change, echoed that statement, writing on Twitter Wednesday that “her story shows us that the criminal justice system has failed yet another Black woman,” and that “We must stop blaming victims for the crimes of their perpetrators.”

Now 29, Brown has already spent a huge chunk of her young life behind bars, having been convicted in 2006 of the first degree murder of Johnny Mitchell Allen, a 43-year-old Nashville real estate agent. She won’t be eligible for parole until she’s 69.

A report from the Tennessean from 2016 states that 

That boyfriend was a 24-year-old known as “Cut-throat” who “abused her physically and sexually,” the Associated Press previously reported. 

Allen picked up teenage Brown on the street in his truck and brought her to his home. Fearing her safety, she shot Allen in bed.

Her case has been documented by filmmaker Dan Birman’s Me Facing Life: Cyntoia’s Story. “She had no chance,” Birman said of Brown.