Phoenix Rising founder Azurdee Garland of Bowling Green lights a candle Wednesday, January 11, 2017, during a human trafficking vigil at City Hall. (Bac Totrong/photo@bgdailynews.com)

When Vicki Patterson’s mother wanted money to have her hair done, she sold her daughter for sex to the highest bidder and allowed the men who paid to take photographs of the acts.

From the time she was 3 years old until just before she turned 7, Patterson was her family’s “dirty secret” sold over and over at a Cumberland River resort in Tennessee in the 1950s. Now at 63 years old and with both of her parents long since dead, Patterson lives in Bowling Green and speaks out against human trafficking.

Patterson was one of three human trafficking survivors who spoke in front of Bowling Green City Hall on Wednesday night during a vigil held by the local group Phoenix Rising to honor the survivors and to remember those who lost their lives to human trafficking.

Azurdee Garland, executive director of Phoenix Rising, an organization formed to combat human trafficking, got involved with the issue 10 years ago after meeting children who had been trafficked. She founded Phoenix Rising, and the organization is working toward raising money for an eight-bed home in Bowing Green for girls who are recovering from trafficking.

“Our whole goal is to educate the community, help survivors and then the third component is giving juveniles a home,” she said. “It will be a place where they can receive education, extensive counseling, and they can be taught life skills and vocational skills so they realize that they matter to somebody, that they can do something with their lives, that they don’t have to be a victim and there are ways they can survive in a community without being involved in risky behavior.”

Garland began the vigil with a candle lighting with the 40 attendees, read a proclamation from both the city and county recognizing Wednesday as Human Trafficking Awareness Day in Bowling Green and Warren County and invited any survivors to speak.

Patterson walked up, candle in hand, and said she was trafficked for child pornography and is “so grateful” an organization exists to help victims of modern-day slave trading.

For years she lost large parts of her childhood memories and battled a variety of mental illnesses. She knew she had been sexually victimized as a girl by both of her parents and by strangers but didn’t recall many details until undergoing extensive therapy. Her mother denied the abuse up until two weeks before she took her own life.

“I was always the dirty secret in the family,” she said.

The last time Patterson can recall being sold for sex, her mother wanted $25 to get her hair done. Patterson hadn’t yet turned 7.

“This has been a lifelong process. It caused a lot of problems in relationships. It caused problems in raising my children,” she said. “I developed mental illness from the trauma.”

After gaining mental stability, Patterson joined Phoenix Rising to help other survivors.

“I want to be able to go out and make a difference for these kids because I know the hurt and the pain that these kids and these adults are going through,” she said.

Another survivor, Michaela Floyd of Nashville, was an adult in her 30s when she answered what she thought was a talent agency advertisement. 

“I was trafficked by a mafia-run prostitution ring in 11 states and 26 cities in a three-month period,” Floyd said.

She met someone in New Orleans who offered to help her out of her situation only to find herself at the hands of yet another trafficker. That man allowed her to leave for a couple of days four years ago and a friend convinced her to run. She took off, changed her name and now works in office administration.

Floyd met Garland online and later in person at a Phoenix Rising conference last year.

“I think survivor voices and survivor leadership in the movement (to end trafficking) are important,” Floyd said.

— Follow Assistant City Editor Deborah Highland on Twitter @BGDNCrimebeat or visit bgdailynews.com.