She was 19 when she first entered "The Life," as she calls it. A life of drugs and addiction, of violence and manipulation. A life of being forced to sell her body.

Jasmine Marino is now 36 and has been clean and sober for nearly a decade. Today, the Massachusetts resident works to help other girls and women caught in the world if human trafficking, offering her story and her help to get them out.

Human trafficking is coming to greater attention in New Hampshire as the problem grows along with the opioid addiction crisis. State and federal agencies are now joining forces with a task force chartered to prosecute traffickers, and help the victims like Marino.

Her entry into becoming a human trafficking victim started in her teen years. She had graduated from high school and was looking forward to something more out of life. She worked in a hair salon while going to community college with dreams of going into journalism. But her childhood in a dysfunctional family pointed her in the wrong direction. Already using alcohol and drugs to cope, Marino met the man who would become her trafficker in a nightclub.

"I needed love and attention," she said.

The man gave her that attention and what seemed to be love. He was a "good boyfriend" for the first few months as he manipulated her and got Marino to rely on him. Then, the relationship changed.

"Before I knew it, he had me selling my body," she said.

Marino said she became the first girl the man sold into sex work, but there would be others. She tried to get away from him, and the life of degradation, for five years, but her addiction to drugs and his violence, combined with her own need for his warped attention, kept her coming back.

"When I spoke up, that’s when he started using violence," she said.

Violence is part of the toolkit for most of the traffickers, according to police.

Marino said many women involved in the sex trade are beaten and addicted to drugs, something their traffickers use to keep them controlled. Many of these women start being trafficked as young as 12, she said. This is something most people who hire prostitutes don’t think about, she said.

"Sex buyers don’t realize the amount of damage created by what they are engaging in," she said.

Marino had enough after her trafficker forced her to get an abortion, she said. She had started to hide money from her trafficker, saving up enough to get a down payment on an apartment, but she was 24 years old, had not job references and no employment history. Landlords did not want to take her own.

Then, Marino had a weird stroke of luck, or as she sees it, an act of God. A man bought her sex services through the Internet, but when Marino got there, he didn’t want to have sex with her. Instead they talked and formed a friendship.

"This guy became safe somehow," she said.

And he helped her to get out of "The Life" by serving as a work reference to landlords. This got her away from her trafficker, but not free from herself. By now, Marino said she was still addicted to drugs and soon found herself back to selling her body to feed her addiction. She spiralled out of control and became homeless. She struggled, though, and in 2007 finally got clean and sober, and started putting her life back together.

"That was the easier part, compared to the healing from the shame of being trafficked," she said.

As Marino tried to build her new life, she never told anyone about her past, until she encountered a ministry in her church that went out to help women who are engaged in sex work. When Marino spoke to the female minister about what she went through, that’s when learned she was no longer a victim of human trafficking.

"She was thrilled, she said ‘You’re a survivor,’" Marino said.

Marino now travels to speak about her experience, and she works to bring women back in from being trafficked. She recently published book about her journey called "The Diary of Jasmine Grace."

Marino said more need to be done for women who are being trafficked.

"We need to look at this wit a different lens," she said.

U.S. Attorney for New Hampshire Emily Gray Rice said people need to be made aware of the problem. It’s in New Hampshire, she said, and it is real.

"Many people think this is a problem that goes on only in large metropolitan areas," Rice said.

January is Human Trafficking Awareness month and Rice want people to understand not only the problem, but what can be done to make a difference. New Hampshire received a $1.3 million federal grant late last year to start up the task force, Rice said.

Though she and other law enforcement leaders have been working on the problem well before the funding came through, Rice said the task force can now hire staff and focus efforts on getting help for the trafficked victims. This can mean drug recovery treatment and medical care, as well as counseling and other services. Rice’s office is working with municipal and state law enforcement agencies to prosecute the traffickers.

Marino will continue in her mission to bear witness to her experience, and bring hop to the other women.

Damien Fisher can be reached at 594-1245 or dfisher@nashuatelegraph.com.