Unseen: The Boy Victims of the Sex Trade

Today, Jose Alfaro lives with his partner of nine years and is a hair stylist on Newbury Street. But years ago, he was a homeless 16-year-old whose father assaulted him for being gay, and he was looking for help. And he thought he found it in Jason Gandy, a man in his 30’s who empathized with him and offered him a place to live.

“It seemed like a dream, and at the time, not having anywhere to go,” Alfaro says now.

But the dream quickly became a grim reality. Gandy told Alfaro he would have to work in the older man’s “massage” business, which was a euphemism for prostitution.

Many young men have traveled the same path to homelessness and then to sexual exploitation — and young Black and brown men are disproportionately at risk.

Read the “Unseen” series on GBH News:

Part 1: https://www.wgbh.org/news/unseen-the-boy-victims-of-the-sex-trade-pt-1

Part 2: https://www.wgbh.org/news/unseen-the-boy-victims-of-the-sex-trade-pt-2

#sextrafficking

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