Sex work in NYC: The impacts and pitfalls of decriminalization

Conversations about sex work and the stigma around it have been floating around New York City for years. The state has considered decriminalizing it. Some district attorneys have mostly stopped policing it. And now, new legislation hopes to make life easier for New Yorkers participating in sex work.

City Councilmember Tiffany Cabán introduced the bill to protect sex workers rights, and Ane Mathieson is the Project Director at the EMPOWER Center, a service center for survivors of commercial sexual exploitation. WNYC’s All Things Considered hosted them to discuss the issue and the legislation.

The following interview transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Sean Carlson: Councilmember, can you start by explaining to us what your bill hopes to accomplish?

Councilmember Tiffany Cabán: Yes, well, just zooming out into a larger framework: New York City’s economy doesn't work for everyone. And there are people who have been historically marginalized, oppressed, discriminated against, and then get driven into underground economies, right? And so, what my bill aims to do is establish a number of protections to make things a little bit healthier, safer and easier for folks. So, it would establish the Sex Worker Opportunity Program, and basically help sex workers who have been de-platformed by providing necessary funds that they need. It defines sex work in our administrative code so we can continue to legislate. It removes housing discrimination, if you engage in current or past sex work, and then just provides for the city to have a number of different resources available to do outreach to sex workers and their communities to see what needs are to help support.

Now, you've supported the full decriminalization of sex work, but this bill accomplishes something different. Why are you pursuing these specific policies right now?

I mean, it comes down to what tools are in our toolbox. You know, a few years ago, I ran for Queens district attorney, and part of the platform was to decriminalize sex work, because there's a lot of research that shows that by decriminalizing sex work, you can actually better target trafficking. And so now I'm a city councilmember, and the tools in my toolbox are different. What I can do is legislate at the local level, what I can do is help drive funds to community-based organizations at the local level.

Yeah, we wanted to ask you about those grants to community groups that would help folks with things like health care and housing. There are some pretty grim forecasts about the city's fiscal future. So where's that money going to come from?

Yeah, I mean, it takes a lot of advocacy, right? Because the budget is a finite document or thing. And so, every dollar we spend in one place is one dollar we don't spend in another. And so, it's almost like this false dichotomy that we get, like, “Oh, the fiscal future it's dire, it doesn't look good.” But at the same time, we continue to pump money into carceral systems that don't give us the best public health and public safety outcomes. And so, what we should be doing is shifting resources away from things that don't work, i.e., criminalization and incarceration, and shifting them to some of these strategies that we know do work.

Ane, as someone whose organization deals with people in this industry every day, do you have any concerns about the legislation?

Ane Mathieson: The bill that Councilmember Cabán introduced, has some very important points that we support, and some that are problematic. We support ending the arrests, incarceration and police harassment of people exploited in the sex trade as well. And we also advocate that the city and state provide free services to this population. But this bill is problematic because it redefined sex trafficked children as sex workers. It excludes the majority of people in the sex trade from its benefits. And the bill seeks to legitimize the New York City sex trade in the system of prostitution as a job like any other.

Councilmember, do you want to take the chance to respond to that before we move forward?

Cabán: Yeah, absolutely. And, again, I think that there is a clear difference between trafficking and sex work. And you know, the rallying cry of a lot of folks in the decriminalization movement, who are engaged in sex work is that sex work is survival work. And so, the goal is using all the tools in our toolbox, and that means legislative interventions, that means budgetary support, that by no means is anybody advocating for, for example, the sexual exploitation or trafficking of anyone, including children, but just acknowledging that this is a line of work that has existed since the beginning of time, it's going to continue to exist. And so, what we're just trying to do is making sure that we save lives, that we're doing everything we can to get the best health and safety outcomes. And then the beautiful thing about the legislative process is we get really critical testimony from people from all sides of the aisle, all ends of the spectrum, to give their opinions on the bill and to make critical critiques, right, that we didn't listen to. And oftentimes, we make tweaks to legislation at that juncture in the bill so that at the end of the day, we'rein a place where we get to pass the strongest, tightest bill that has the intended impact.

Now, Ane, outside of the things in this bill that we've been talking about. What are some other things you think the city government can do to help improve the circumstances of people in the industry?

Mathieson: I appreciate that question, Sean. I did want to respond briefly to the councilmember, though. So, this bill exclusively targets people it refers to as sex workers, which it defines as people voluntarily engaged in the sex trade. So first, it's important to note that of the thousands of people who are exploited daily in the sex trade, only a select few identify as sex workers. So, we're confused why this bill seeks to establish services and protections that would exclude the majority of people from its benefits. At the same time, we find that it falsely portrays the sex trade as a voluntary option instead of an arena that is rife with exploitation.

And what we see at the EMPOWER Center is cumulative complex trauma. Because of that, we were quite shocked to see that this bill goes so far as to redefine child sex trafficking victims as sex workers, and the bill directs the administration of children's services to identify child sex workers. This would mean that New York City would consider sex trafficking children as workers in the sex trade. Using this language to describe child sex trafficking victims is not only in violation of New York state, federal and international laws, but it minimizes the realities of child sex trafficking.

Now, both of you have talked about this at length at this point, and that sex work affects the most marginalized people, such as trans people and undocumented women. Councilmember Cabán, what do you think your legislation would do for marginalized New Yorkers?

Cabán: These bills would create stronger systems and protections that would help keep younger folks out of exploitative circumstances. You know, in places like Australia, New Zealand, governments have taken what is obviously a politically thorny issue and established smart, compassionate, evidence based, human rights affirming legal frameworks around sex work. And so, I think it's time for us to take a first step in that same direction.

As we mentioned at the top, district attorneys in the city have mostly stopped prosecuting people for engaging in prostitution. Between 2012 and last year, arrests went down by about 96% in New York City. So, this question is to both of you: Do you think that the shift speaks to a larger change in how the culture views people engaged in sex work?

Mathieson: So we are undertaking a research prevalence study of sex trafficking in New York state right now. And the initial findings are showing that as a consequence of this shift toward full decriminalization, that trafficking has actually tripled in New York State in the year that law enforcement has taken this more hands-off approach to the issue. We are also hearing reports of increases in the numbers of teenage girls, primarily Black and brown girls, who are being sold in the sex trade. And that's because teenagers are the most easily controlled and the greatest profits can be made off of them. So these are some of the concerns that we have right now.

And Councilmember Cabán, do you think prosecutors declining to prosecute these kinds of things speaks to a shift in how the culture views this work?

Cabán: You know, I think it does. I think there is a shift in how people view the work, but also it is becoming a little less taboo to talk about sex work. And, you know, before I was a councilmember, I was a public defender who many times represented criminalized sex workers in court. And what they found was, you know, when they were doing their work, their survival sex work, that the criminalization and the decriminalization of only on the seller side, but not buyer side, created a lot of dangers. And so not being able to vet their clients, also while being criminalized; not being able to report to police when they are taken advantage of when their wages or their pay is stolen. And so, what you'll also see is people are more willing to gain access to different supports, whether it is the law enforcement community, whether it is the hospital setting and feeling safer to be able to report in those ways. And so, there's a lot of work out there being done around, making sure that sex workers are fully decriminalized as a way and a tool and a target for having a more of a scalpel when going in and trying to actually reduce the trafficking that is occurring.