Mamdani is wrong on prostitution laws
In recent years, we have seen powerful men like Sean “P. Diddy” Combs and Jeffrey Epstein exposed for sexual exploitation of women and girls. These cases show how easily money and power can be used as weapons to prey on vulnerable people. Yet despite everything we have learned, mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani continues to support the full decriminalization of prostitution.
Decriminalization doesn’t just mean decriminalizing people sold for sex – it means removing all criminal penalties for pimping, owning brothels and purchasing sex. In other words, it would open the door to burgeoning sexual exploitation in one of the most visited cities in the world.
Let’s first recognize where Mamdani is right: we shouldn’t arrest people who are bought and sold. At World Without Exploitation, the nation’s largest anti-trafficking coalition, we work with survivors—women, girls, LGBTQ youth, and people of color—who have endured abuse, rape, and trauma at the hands of buyers and traffickers. Survivors need support, services and exit strategies, not handcuffs.
But Mamdani is dangerously wrong about the solution. As a New York state assemblyman, he co-sponsored legislation that would completely decriminalize the sex trade, including pimping and purchasing sex. This is not a progressive policy, it is a gift to traffickers and exploiters.
We don’t need to guess what would result, as some countries have already tried this flawed approach. Whether it’s complete decriminalization (as in New Zealand) or legalization (as in Germany, the Netherlands, and some Nevada counties), the results are strikingly similar: expanded sex work, more trafficking, and more violence.
In both models, all aspects of prostitution become legal, including the buying, selling and promotion of sexual acts. Brothels become businesses. Pimps become “managers”. Law enforcement loses the tools needed to investigate and prosecute trafficking. Demand increases, and with it, so does coercion.
Where the sex trade is legal or decriminalized, the illegal trade does not disappear. In fact, it is increasing – because the legal market normalizes and increases demand, and there are never enough sellers “willing” to meet it. Traffickers step in to fill the void.
Worse still, it becomes almost impossible to obtain search warrants or arrest exploiters. This is not justice, it is abandonment. And it hurts the most vulnerable among us.
Although advocates like Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) use the term “decriminalization” to appear sympathetic, make no mistake: What they are proposing is more extreme than legalization. Full decriminalization eliminates all penalties for sex buyers, pimps and brothel owners. And this without any regulations in place; not even a facade of protection for those working in the sex trade.
The Mandami-backed legislation also makes it more difficult to investigate and prosecute sex trafficking cases because commercial sex establishments would become legitimate businesses, eliminating law enforcement’s opportunities to detect children and trafficking victims. Frankly, this would make it easier for sex buyers to purchase sexual acts from a minor.
Many people caught in the sex trade are no longer legally children. But they are still young – often just out of foster care, fleeing homelessness or fleeing abuse. These are disproportionately young women of color and LGBTQ youth.
In a world where the purchase of sex is legal, these vulnerable populations are funneled into a system that treats their bodies like a commodity – all to satisfy the demand for men who take no risk in purchasing them. For years, New York City youth shelters have reported pimps recruiting young people into the sex trade.
This is not a victimless industry. The sex trade is inherently violent and thrives on inequality. Making the Big Apple a mecca for sex tourism is not progress. It is exploitation disguised as liberation.
Fortunately, there is a better path for New York. The Justice and Equality for Survivors of the Sex Trade Act would only decriminalize exploited people, providing them with services and support to exit the sex trade. This legislation is modeled after effective laws in countries such as Sweden, France and Canada. They target the exploiters, not the exploited, and recognize that those who work in the sex trade deserve dignity, care and an outcome – not laws enabling their abuse.
Let’s not be fooled by catchy slogans. Complete decriminalization is not about security or freedom. It’s about profit, pure and simple. Profit for those who exploit. New York can and must choose a better path that protects all of our families, our communities, and the most vulnerable in society.
Zipkin is the political director of World Without Exploitation and a former New York prosecutor.
