Her father helped her escape. He knew if she stayed in Ivory Coast, she’d be married against her will as a teenager, her genitals ritualistically cut, raped by her husband, and forced to bear his children. Her life as she knew it would end. She left for New York, where her father thought she would be safe. Now the U.S. immigration system wants to send her back. She is 16 years old.

Anyone watching the news this past August could think they’d been transported back to Montgomery, Georgia, circa 1954. Darren Wilson, a white police officer, had shot dead 18-year-old black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Images of police in riot gear unleashing dogs and water cannons on protesters dominated every TV network. Violence between demonstrators and police erupted in the small town.

On May 28, 2014, most Indian newspapers ran front-page stories about two teenage girls, cousins, who had been hanged in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh after being allegedly gang-raped. Some papers also printed the disturbing image of the girls’ bodies hanging from a mango tree in their village. The public display of the young girls, wearing blood-stained clothes and riddled with thorns, caught India’s attention.