NASHUA — Audrey Morrissey said that at age 15, she became a victim of human and sex trafficking when her boyfriend “turned her out” to work on the streets of Boston.

She was exploited for years before getting help.

“We use language like teen prostitute,” Morrissey said during her Monday talk at the Rotary Club of Nashua meeting. “There’s no such thing. The term is commercial sexual exploitation of children.”

“Why is language important? Because if we use terms like teen prostitute, it implies that they volunteer to do this,” she added.

Morrissey is now the associate director and national survivor leadership director of My Life My Choice, a Boston-based nonprofit organization that battles human and sex trafficking. The organization also provides survivor-led mentoring programs to help adolescent girls in Massachusetts.

Morrissey founded My Life My Choice’s Survivor Mentoring program in 2004. In this program, the average mentor has a caseload of 10-12 children and will go out to meet them wherever they are to talk. The organization serves about 150 young people per year. While Morrissey said mentoring works, she said more needs to be done.

Morrissey visited Nashua to share the warning signs of human and sex trafficking, while discussing how to help and how to battle its stigma.

“This is something that is done to a child,” Morrissey said. “Children do not wake up and say, ‘I want to be bought and sold.’ Nine times out of 10, there’s an adult perpetrator.”

According to Morrissey, 80% of trafficking victims who are sold are in social service systems, such as foster homes or homeless shelters. The other 20% come from two-parent homes.

Regardless, she said commercial sexual exploitation preys on vulnerability.

Morrissey said during her ordeal, she came from Boston’s “Combat Zone,” which was known for its strip clubs and other adult entertainment. Though this is now gone, she warned of an even more dangerous area for children — the internet.

“At least we were visible. People saw us. People these days are selling children on the internet,” Morrissey said.

“This is real, this happens, and in this day, it’s harder to find children. In my day, you came to the Combat Zone and you could see people out there. You don’t see our children now,” Morrissey added.

Morrissey said the only thing someone might see is a woman on the street selling herself.

“That woman that might be 30 years old that’s selling herself oftentimes was a teenage girl that never made it out. That was my story,” Morrissey said. “When I was 30 years old, if you passed me, you would have made the assumption that I was on the corner because I was a drug addict. I’m sure nobody ever rode past me and thought, that poor woman was brought in as a child and never made it out.”

During her presentation, Morrissey also shared information on who is at risk and the tactics used for recruiting children. According to Morrissey, all children are at risk, but especially youth who want to fit in, want more independence and want to feel loved.

She shared four tactics for recruiting used by pimps, which include force, coercion, befriending and seduction.

“We have to make a difference,” Morrissey said.

In doing so, she said the organization is looking for male allies.

“I can talk to kids all day long because I lived the life. But what we have to do is stop the demand — people who think they have the right to buy people,” Morrissey said. “Upper middle class white men aren’t going to listen to me. Who do you think they’re going to listen to? Other upper middle class white men.”

She added, “No one, no child should be bought or sold.”

Grace Pecci may be reached at 594-1243, or at gpecci@nashuatelegraph.com.

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