Why Efforts to Fully Decriminalize NY’s Brutal Sex Trade Must Be Squashed

Press Releases / December 7, 2020

Men Looking for Pandemic Sex at Low Prices, Bronx Girls Targeted to Meet the Demand

December 7, 2020 — New York, NY —The NYPD’s Human Trafficking Squad and Attorney General Letitia James’s Organized Crime Task Force built a case over the past 10 months that led to the arrest of convicted sexual offender, Paul Alexander, 57, who lured girls as young as 12 into prostitution to sell them to anonymous sex buyers.

“The dedicated officers of the NYPD deserve recognition for a job well done,” said Sonia Ossorio, Executive Director of the National Organization for Women – New York City. “The successful partnership between NYPD and the AG’s Organized Crime Task Force shines a light on how the brutal local sex trade lures and recruits our youngest and most marginalized. Those who profit from this business and those who create the demand must be held accountable. We commend the NYPD and AG for fighting for the safety, dignity, and rights of our black and brown daughters and sisters who are bought and sold in prostitution.”

Calling these children “ghetto rats” who can be lured by offers of food, made helpless with the use of alcohol and marijuana, and noting they live in the poorest county, Alexander advised NYC men on how to make them compliant, the NY Daily News reported.

“New York residents would be shocked to learn that leading Mayoral candidate Scott Stringer and well-financed candidate for Manhattan District Attorney Dan Quart support the full decriminalization of the sex trade, including pimping and brothel owning,” Ossorio said. “Rebuilding the economy on the backs of poor women and turning NYC into the next sex tourism destination utterly disqualifies you to lead this great city.”

Full decriminalization of the sex trade, a proposal currently in the New York Legislature, would extend legal protections to pimps, brothel owners, sex tourism operators, and sex buyers. When the sex trade is decriminalized, demand increases, and in an unregulated market, predatory men who pay to have sex with poor women become law-abiding citizens. “That’s not progress, it’s doubling down on male privilege,” Ossorio added.

NOW-NYC ignites change for the women and girls of New York. We advance laws, promote women in politics, fight for reproductive justice, challenge discrimination and violence against women, and act NOW.

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