In contested NYC Assembly races Incumbents Alex Bores (D-73 UES), Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas (D-34 Queens), Emily Gallagher (D-50 Brooklyn) support striking laws against selling, buying and promoting prostitution and brothel owning.

Eli Northrup (D-69 UWS) and Jordan Wright (D-70 Harlem) are first-time candidates who support decriminalization of the sex trade.

While there is no federal legislation calling for sex trade decriminalization, which includes pimping, sex buying and brothel keeping, Congressman Jamaal Bowman supports the concept.

New York June 23, 2024 – New York legislative proposal A8605A/S4396  (Forrest/Salazar) would decriminalize buying and selling sex, 3rd and 4th degree promoting prostitution, operating brothels and sex tourism.

“This legislation would make NYC a major sex tourism destination,” said Sonia Ossorio, ED of the National Organization for Women – New York City. “While men explore the novelty of freely buying sex in a post #MeToo New York, those seeking to profit from a legal sex trade will invest in storefronts, data-driven technology and advertising to draw in local and foreign sex buyers alike. As has happened with legalized cannabis, NYC will need additional enforcement mechanisms and policing in the expanded street prostitution zones and online.“

“In a city with red light districts, congestion pricing may become more relevant as sex buyers descend on the city. The vehicular toll receipts would be important in investigations in which those in the sex trade are harmed or murdered and other collateral crime that takes places near and within the sex trade,” Ossorio added. “Perhaps because of congestion pricing the prostitution zomes will be in the Bronx and Upper Manhattan, communities that don’t deserve the crime and objectification of women.”

To meet current demand for sex acts that in some NYC open air sex markets start at $50 for fellatio and $100 for vaginal penetration, criminal enterprises import women and girls and trans individuals from economically and politically unstable countries using fraud, force, threats and coercion. Local pimps use the same tactics and befriend and recruit minors near schools, playgrounds, shelters, youth group homes and online.

The influx that has brought 200,000 asylum seekers to New York City is a humanitarian crisis that will be exploited in a decriminalized sex trade. Brothels line Roosevelt Avenue in Queens where desperate migrants are being funneled into the sex trade. Community members report being afraid to walk and women who live in the area are routinely propositioned by sex buyers. Many dozens of clandestine brothels and massage parlors dot Manhattan‘s residential and commercial neighborhoods.

Pimp-controlled illegal prostitution zones operate in Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx and Manhattan. Underage females have been rescued from these “tracks,” illegal guns have been confiscated from pimps and violence rules these streets. In February, a Queens mother was killed by an online sex buyer in a midtown hotel. In March, a sex trade promoter was convicted of dismembering a woman he prostituted. In late April, two pimps murdered a rival who tried to lure away one of the women in the duo’s “stable” of women. In May, a 60-year-old man was shot to death in East Brooklyn’s expanding prostitution zone.

“If the candidates who seek to decriminalize the sex trade win, the future prospects for New York City’s safety, quality of life and post-pandemic revitalization are jeopardized,” Ossorio said. “It is political malpractice and each lawmaker who has signed their name to this legislation or promised to if elected will have to answer to voters, and none more, than women. Why should we vote for anyone who is working to give men a legal right to buy sex on demand? Some men may have an interest in voting for you, but certainly not women in your district.”

Full list of state elects who support a decriminalized sex trade:  Assembly: Phara Souffrant Forrest, Chris Burdick, Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas, Harvey Epstein, Zohran Mamdani, Sarahana Shrestha, Alex Bores, Karina Reyes. Marcela Mitaynes, Robert C. Carroll, Anna Kelles, Tony Simone, Emily Gallagher. Senators: Julia Salazar, Jaban Brisport, Cordell Cleare, Robert Jackson, Kristen Gonzalez, Jessica Ramos, Luis Sepulveda, Gustavo Rivera.

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