Sold In America

Our series begins where Noor’s journey into world of sexual exploitation and violence began, as a 12 year old girl in a hotel in Saudi Arabia. But when she sits down with a survivor of the sex trade, she begins to understand sex trafficking in a whole new light. And now Noor is face-to-face with how easy it is for women to be Sold in America.

The sex trade in America may appear unseen, but it is not hidden. In Kentucky, where the opioid crisis is making people vulnerable to exploitation, Noor meets doctors and police officers who are training to recognize trafficking victims in medical settings and on the streets. By the time Noor leaves the Bluegrass state, she's convinced that we must talk about drugs and addiction if we want to help trafficking victims.

Every day and every hour in this country, people are buying and selling sex. It’s on the street, it’s online, and it’s worth billions. And the people buying are mostly men. In most parts of the country, buyers rarely face any consequences, but one city is trying something different. Noor travels to Seattle where she meets a man who was arrested for buying sex, and the public official who wants to crack down on demand. But then she meets a sex worker in the city who flips the narrative about exploitation on its head.

Nevada is the land of legalized prostitution. At the Bunny Ranch brothel, Noor explores a model of sex entirely as a business – just like any other. She meets a highly paid prostitute who plans to leave the ranch with hundreds of thousands in savings. The infamous pimp who runs the place argues that if you're selling sex for money in America and you're not doing it legally in a brothel, you're a criminal. But Noor learns that only a select few can meet the standards for working in the brothel.

Noor meets Laya, a trans woman of color who became a sex worker after she was shut out from her family and job. It’s called survival sex -- sex work done purely to survive. What makes sex work dangerous for people like Laya is that she can’t report violent buyers to the police without fear of being arrested. Now, she’s trying to get a new law passed by the Washington, D.C. city council to decriminalize the buying and selling of sex. Is this the solution Noor has been searching for, or just a band-aid?

A huge portion of the sex trade takes place online. Huge websites like Backpage and Craigslist used to offer a place where sex workers posted ads for their services. But these websites were also seen as a breeding ground for illegal trafficking. That’s why Congress passed legislation this year to hold websites accountable for posts related to prostitution. Politicians from both parties voted to pass a bill cracking down on online sex trade -- because how could you not want to help sex trafficking victims? The bill is called FOSTA/SESTA. But many sex workers see it differently. Noor heads to Capitol Hill for the first ever sex work lobby day and finds out that the people this law was meant to protect were never consulted before it passed -- and now say it's made their lives far more dangerous.

Noor wraps up her journey focusing on the one area all sides of the sex trade debate can agree on -- kids. She meets Ashley Cacho, who was moved from one foster care home to another and started being trafficked at age 11. And she hangs out with a group of kids who tell her about the risks they face ending up in the sex trade when they run away or are homeless for even one night. And Noor finds the answer to sex trafficking has nothing to do with sex.

Throughout the series, Noor asked her audience for stories and questions from listeners. In this episode, Noor will share some of these stories and answer questions.