GREENFIELD — After viewing a Frontline documentary focused on sexual exploitation in Phoenix, about 40 residents at the Garden Cinemas heard how authorities are combating sexual exploitation of minors in the area.

As part of a community education initiative undertaken by the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office and the Children’s Advocacy Centers of Hampshire County and Franklin County/North Quabbin, residents were invited to view “Sex Trafficking in America,” a 2019 film that follows a special police unit in Phoenix devoted to rooting out sexual exploitation and, specifically, the harrowing story of a 16-year-old girl named Kat.

The 52-minute film was followed by a panel discussion featuring Northampton Police Capt. Victor Caputo and Assistant District Attorney Anne Yereniuk, deputy chief of the Child Protection Unit of the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office, as well as Kayla Washington and Kelly Broadway, the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) coordinators at the two Children’s Advocacy Centers. Also on the panel was an unidentified local woman who survived sex trafficking perpetrated by her father.

“Self-esteem rests on how good of a product you are,” the woman said as she detailed her upbringing, which consisted of attending 12 schools as a child, making it virtually impossible for friends, neighbors or teachers to notice a problem. “I would have been a very hard child to help.”

Washington said the survivors she works with are typically 14 to 16 years old. Broadway said the youngest survivor she has met was 11.

“A lot of this stuff is internet-based,” Caputo noted during the discussion. “There’s so many apps and … communication tools. I have a teenage daughter and, yeah, they’re on their phones constantly and it’s a target-rich environment for people who want to engage in that behavior.”

An audience member asked panelists about similarities between what was portrayed in the documentary and what happens in rural western Massachusetts. Yereniuk said authorities patrolling street corners to catch sex workers — as depicted in the film — are nonexistent in Franklin County because it is not an urban area, but “it is online, it is real life.” She also said there are law enforcement officers dedicated to fighting internet crimes.

Yereniuk also mentioned how the opioid epidemic and housing crisis are fueling the sexual exploitation problem.

“In order to prove human trafficking beyond a reasonable doubt, you have to show that there’s an exchange of something for value,” she explained. “Something for value doesn’t mean cash. Something for value doesn’t mean currency. It could be whatever.”

Caputo said perpetrators of sexual exploitation use mental manipulation to recruit their victims and keep them trapped.

Some of the people in attendance included members of the western Massachusetts chapter of Bikers Against Child Abuse, an organization that protects young victims of sexual abuse. The bikers provide security and comfort to children going through the ordeal of their abusers’ trial.

Funding for Wednesday’s screening came from a $60,141 grant from the state’s Human Trafficking Enforcement and Training Grant Program to educate mandated reporters, school staff, medical personnel and the community at large about commercial sexual exploitation of children. The money also will fund training for area law enforcement with the goal of developing a regional group of investigators with advanced skills in obtaining digital evidence and the technological expertise to conduct complex human trafficking investigations.

Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-930-4120.