Will New York become the first state to decriminalize sex work? The answer is yes — if it was up to this group of advocates, lawmakers, and sex workers fighting to push through legislation to improve the lives of people in the sex trades.
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00:00The police department cannot tell me what I need. I know what I need.
00:15Beyond decriminalization, we want to decarcerate and destigmatize the sex trades.
00:18We want people in the sex trades to have access to their basic needs.
00:22We're not looking right now to create a new industry and regulate it
00:26and start thinking about licensing and all of these things.
00:29No, we're focused on making sure that condoms are not used as evidence of sex work,
00:36that there aren't any laws that impede people from hanging out on the street.
00:43Loitering is something that we're looking to amend the penal code about.
00:59When I was 19, I was walking with my boyfriend, you know, holding hands.
01:10It was like 12 or 1 a.m., I don't remember.
01:13And two undercover cops stopped us.
01:18They searched my purse. They found condoms.
01:20And that was the, you know, the evidence to their arrest me.
01:25Even my boyfriend explained to them that we are partners.
01:29They said to him, go home or we're going to arrest you.
01:33I was arrested that night, and they put me in charge of prostitution.
01:44The pimp will have the power. The brothel owner will have the power.
01:49And we know this because we find it to be true
01:52in countries that have legalized prostitution.
02:00The idea that we should end demand for sex as a strategy to address exploitation,
02:05it's just not the way that you address exploitation in any other industry.
02:09We don't end demand for food to end trafficking in the agriculture industry.
02:14And the same goes for the sex trades.
02:17We're not going to end demand for sex to end trafficking in the sex trades.
02:21The way to end trafficking is through labor rights.