RIVESVILLE, W. Va. – At the age of 10, Penny Hoeflinger was on the road and away from her Wyoming home with people she didn’t know.

But not of her volition. She said she had been prostituted to a city councilman and subsequently passed around from person to person, state to state as a victim of human trafficking.

“I was 10 years old,” said the 70-year-old Hoeflinger. “As my life progressed I ended up being sold to the truckers from one state to the next. I’ve been sold, abused and lots of other things.”

In West Virginia, and elsewhere, children are taken from their homes at a young age with no perspective of a world outside prostitution, she said. Often they come from poor families like Hoeflinger said she grew up in.

The West Virginia Attorney General’s Office has taken notice, launching an initiative to get victims to safety and away from traffickers. 

“Over the course of the last year, 10 months to be more specific, the attorney general’s office has been conducting training courses and public awareness events with law enforcement officers all over the state, together with other stakeholders,” said Bob Leslie, a senior deputy attorney general.

“We’re making sure if they see it, either from a lay person standpoint or from a law enforcement standpoint, they know how to appropriately respond.”

The attorney general’s interest was spurred through investigation of opioid cases, and the link between drug addiction and prostitution.

“We all begin to hear these horror stories of how the drug addicted parent is selling their child in an effort to cover the money they need to cover their heroin addiction,” Leslie said. “These stories continue to increase with such frequency, that it’s a legitimate problem in the mountain state.”

Leslie has been at the fore of educating law enforcement and community members on identifying indicators of human trafficking and how to stop it before a young, vulnerable targetl becomes a victim. However, he warned spotting traffickers is not a science.

“The people who are doing this come from all walks of life,” said Leslie. “The better way to focus your efforts is looking to the likely victims and keeping them safe.”

For example, because children are the ideal target of human traffickers, Leslie explained that parents should be vigilant of their children’s activities, taking note of any suspicious interactions with strangers.

“If a person isn’t getting at home the sort of love and support they need, they find it elsewhere and they can fall into the hands of a predator,” Leslie said. “The best way to prevent this is starting at home with your own family. Be supportive of your children and be parents to your children. Know what your kids are doing and be engaged.”

“West Virginia in 2016 had less than 250 calls to the national hotline, and it only produced 68 cases in the state,” Leslie said. “It’s not being recognized here, so what we’re doing now is working with law enforcement and these other stakeholders so they can recognize it and respond to it accordingly.”

For reference on the inner workings of human trafficking, Leslie works with advocates like Hoeflinger who speak out about their time as victims and work toward rescuing and rehabilitating others.

In Hoeflinger’s case, it was almost by luck that she was rescued. She said it happened July 13, 1987, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, when a mobile chapel called “Transport for Christ” and a gentleman named Melvin Ma salvaged her at a Union 76 truck stop.

“A large group of people just surrounded me and held on to me and compassionately led me to the life I have today,” she said.

“You feel hopeless and you feel dirty, and you feel like nobody really cares about you, and that you are never good enough, to be in any kind of career. When you are traumatized through being trafficked, you are in pieces.”

Hoeflinger, a resident of Wexford, West Virginia, has written two books and a play based on her life as a child prostitute. Her mission now is to do what her support systems have done for her, and provide other victims with the compassion they need to adjust to life outside of prostitution.

“I want them to actually see it live how a trafficker takes someone who is vulnerable and how they literally groom them (into prostitution),” Hoeflinger said, adding she wants the public to “go out in the community and say, ‘Hey, wait a minute. That doesn’t look right.’ I don’t want anyone to go through the pain that I had.”

To report information on human trafficking, call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center at 1-888-373-7888.

Eddie Trizzino is a reporter for the Times West Virginian in Fairmont, W. Va. Contact him at etrizzino@timeswv.com.