On a corner of Roosevelt Avenue, Queens, two men bargained with two sex workers outside a discreet brothel. The sight of street sex workers on this crowded avenue that connects the diverse communities of Jackson Heights and nearby Corona has long been common. But in the last year, by one estimate, the number of them has more than doubled, escalating tension between local residents and sex workers, mostly Asian women and Latina trans women.
Mercedes Saguay, an Ecuadorian employee in a nearby bodega, agreed. In September, two opposing demonstrations highlighted the tension in this area surrounding sex work, an illegal activity in every state, except for Maine, which partially decriminalized sex work last July, and a few counties in Nevada. Both groups agree on one thing: the sex trade has mushroomed.
And they link it to the growing economic pressures after the COVID pandemic and the high flow of migrants arriving to the city more than , since the spring of , according to Mayor Eric Adams. Some Queens neighbors preferred not to take a stance, but the increase in the visibility of sex work has not gone unnoticed. A year ago, they counted about Kendry, who used to work late nights as a sex worker on Roosevelt Avenue, now works at Colectivo, seeking to empower sex workers. But few comprehend better than Kendry the need to somehow make a living.
When she arrived in New York City in , sex work was the only way she could survive as a new immigrant trans woman. In four years in the business, she said she was arrested twice, she said. Arrests for sex work-related offenses in the city dropped from nearly 1, in to in , according to information obtained through the Freedom of Information Law FOIL.
In , for instance, New York State counted victims of sex trafficking, but only five people were arrested for this crime, compared to 74 arrests in , according to the Interagency Task Force on Human Trafficking. What would help, advocates and sex workers agree, is decriminalization because it would protect people engaged in sex work from abuse and exploitation, and would maximize their ability to exercise key rights such as access to justice and health care.
