With less than two weeks before early voting begins, Democratic frontrunner Zohran Mamdani continues to dodge the question of whether he continues to support the full decriminalization of prostitution.
In the past, he’s had little problem saying “sex work is work” and voting in favor of a bill to repeal “loitering for the purpose of engaging in prostitution” from the penal code.
Why would anyone expect his position to change now?
After all, Mamdani, a longtime member of the Democratic Socialists of America, has received the group’s endorsement, and decriminalizing prostitution has long been central to the DSA platform.
In a recently resurfaced memo from 2020, Mamdani and other DSA candidates backed an “Agenda for Decarceration,” pledging to “decriminalize sex work.”
True, he claims that his platform “is not the same as national D.S.A.”
Fine.
But then how is he now different from the DSA platform on sex work?
How much daylight is there between his position today and the Mamdani of 2020?
A core socialist belief, the 2020 document notes, is that “people should not have to endure the violence and coercion of a criminal-legal system” that targets “those fighting to survive under capitalism.”
There is little room for plausible deniability here, considering it was written by the NYC DSA and backed by the candidate himself.
And in a now-suppressed version of the group’s platform, which The Post was able to recover, the DSA explicitly calls to “end the repression of sex workers and fully decriminalize sex work nationwide.”
The DSA’s positions on the issue are clear.
(And Mamdani has also endorsed even wilder ideas, such as his 2019 tweet calling for the abolition of jails in the city.)
Considering Mamdani’s inner circle has multiple overlapping DSA ties, it’s likely he’ll staff his administration with similar true-believers.
So what’s at stake if Mamdani wins and attempts to decriminalize sex work?
New York City wouldn’t look like the countries that adopted the so-called Nordic Model, which seeks to penalize only buyers of sexual services.
No, the DSA’s national platform doesn’t even seek to go after the johns.
It would instead advance full decriminalization of buyers and sellers of sexual services — seen as a form of female “liberation.”
Such liberation ignores the fact that the industry is ripe with abuse, and it could exacerbate human trafficking.
It also overlooks the pernicious impacts open-air solicitation has on local communities and public order.
Do we really want kids walking down streets turned into open-air brothels?
This is already the case on Queens’ Roosevelt Avenue, where workers stand outside thinly veiled sex spas.
The area is so bad in terms of crime and anti-social behavior that residents are now calling on the FBI to step in.
After Mayor Eric Adams started cracking down around Roosevelt Ave last fall, crime fell by double-digits.
Who would lose out the most?
Ironically, many of the South Asians in the area form a crucial part of Mamdani’s base.
The candidate is trying to have it both ways: He wants to appeal to his 770,000 fellow Muslims in the city — but at the same time, he can’t alienate DSA members.
Unfortunately for him, prostitution and Islam don’t mix.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is starting to make inroads among Muslims who disapprove of the decriminalization agenda.
Full decriminalization would also put at greater risk the thousands of victims of sex-trafficking.
One survivor, Melanie Thompson of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, said she did not think there was “any liberation in prostitution,” which she said is predicated on the vulnerability of women.”
“Full decriminalization,” she said, poses a very real risk of “increasing trafficking because it increases demand for these services, including sex tourism.”
Thompson also pointed to the consequences of Rhode Island’s move to decriminalize prostitution: One professor said the state’s legal framework created a “zone of impunity in which police [could not] go, and where traffickers [could] exploit their prey.”
In an election where voters rank public safety their top priority, this offers a glimpse of the nightmare inflicted on communities if the DSA’s decriminalization agenda comes to New York: escalating crime, the creation of no-go “red light” districts and anything goes for traffickers and buyers of sex.
If Mamdani won’t tell voters where he stands on prostitution, voters have no choice but to judge him by his record — and the DSA company he keeps.
Adam Lehodey is an investigative reporter at City Journal.
