The Stop Violence in the Sex Trades Act would strike down a host of New York state laws that sex workers say seriously endanger their livelihoods and lives
Decrim NY rally. Photo: Erik McGregor/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images In a historic first, New York could become the first state to fully decriminalize sex work.
Decriminalizing sex work is supported by a slew of human-rights organizations, including Amnesty International and the World Health Organization — and, more importantly, sex workers themselves have been calling for it for decades now. They argue that laws that prohibit the buying and selling of sex do nothing to protect vulnerable populations, but rather make it so that those in the sex trade are far more likely to face violent or exploitative conditions.
The bill, titled the Stop Violence in the Sex Trades Act, would strike down a host of New York state laws that sex workers say seriously endanger their livelihoods and lives. Per The New Republic, it would remove criminal penalties related to the buying and selling of sex and would get rid of charges related to “promoting prostitution,” which can be used to penalize sex workers for working together or even for helping each other screen clients.
Under current laws, sex workers say that they’re subjected to widespread housing, employment, and other forms of discrimination, all for simply attempting to do their job in the safest way possible. This is especially true for black women and transgender people: In New York, for example, black women make up a whopping 94 percent of “loitering for the purposes of prostitution” arrests — a law that authorities use to target women of color for often totally legal activity, activists say.
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