Decriminalize Consensual Sex Work

The criminalization of sex work has cost too many New Yorkers their livelihoods for too long. Rather than protecting vulnerable people, criminalization exacerbates risks and creates additional pathways for harm to sex workers.

Criminalizing sex work exacerbates the over policing and surveillance that already plague Black, Brown, LGBTQ+, and immigrant communities. Approximately 90 percent of those arrested for sex work are Black or Brown — and LGBTQ+ people are disproportionately impacted.

Arrests of sex workers are often violent, and police use charges or the threat of charges to demean, abuse, and coerce sexual favors from sex workers. Criminalization pushes sex work deeper into the shadows, which makes it more difficult for sex workers to screen clients for safety, employ harm reduction strategies, report violence, and access needed services. This not only makes adult consensual sex workers less safe, but it also makes survivors of trafficking and coercion less safe, as they are often criminalized as if they were consensual sex workers.

Sex work related convictions can have devastating consequences, preventing people from securing employment, housing, childcare, and immigration relief. When sex workers are unable to access these basic necessities, it can make them more economically dependent on sex work – even if they would like to leave the profession.

The Stop Violence in the Sex Trades Act (SVSTA) (S4396/A7175) is critical to undoing some of this harm and to promoting the health and safety of sex workers. The bill would remove criminal penalties for the consensual sale of sex between adults, while upholding penalties from trafficking laws that criminalize coercion or force. It would also vacate prior sex work related convictions.

Leading scientists, researchers, harm reduction organizations, and many sex-worker led organizations recognize the SVSTA’s approach as the best way to empower sex workers, and to reduce coercion from police, violence, and STI transmission.

To truly reduce harm and protect the wellbeing of sex workers, we must decriminalize consensual sex work. I urge you to put your full support behind the Stop Violence in the Sex Trades Act.