NEW YORK—The City Council passed legislation Wednesday that would make it illegal to knowingly use Taxi and Limousine Commission licensed vehicles to facilitate sex trafficking.
If a driver or vehicle owner knowingly lets a vehicle be used to transport a sex worker, they would face a $10,000 fine.
Taxi drivers are concerned they will have to start discerning who is and isn’t a prostitute, opening the door for discrimination charges. About a dozen taxi drivers and several women gathered on City Hall’s steps Thursday to protest the bill.
Fernando Mateo, president of New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, motioned to the women gathered and said, “I would challenge anyone of you to tell me which one of them you would consider to be a prostitute. Cab drivers are hired for one reason and one reason only, and that is to transport people from point A to point B in a safe manner. We are not detectives. We are not private investigators.”
But Council member Daniel Dromm said the legislation had been tweaked so that it has to be proven that the taxi driver knew he was transporting a woman from place to place for the purposes of sex trafficking.
“These are people who are effectively serving as pimps,” he said. “We were very careful also not to use the word prostitution,” he said. “Oftentimes women who are sex trafficked are forced into it against their will. I didn’t want to further malign them.”
The bill, Intro 0725, also includes education for drivers about specific laws related to sex trafficking.
The bill would need the mayor’s signature to become law and comments from his administration suggest he would not sign it.
During a hearing for the bill in December, David Yassky, commissioner for the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission, said, “You don’t want to put the driver in a position where they may wind up refusing service to legitimate customers, or even beyond that, asking intrusive and offensive questions and making women feel uncomfortable in a car.”
Yassky could not be reached for comment and the mayor’s office did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Nightclub worker Ramessis Aponte was at City Hall Thursday. She said she often leaves work late.
“When I do come out of work, I really would hate the fact that a cab driver won’t take me just because he assumes that from my attire I might be a prostitute,” she said.
Co-worker Jadar Sogja had a different perspective. “We’re working, so we’re not inebriated the way our clients are. I’m just thinking about the girls that do attend the clubs wearing the tiny little dresses and need public transportation because you can’t drink and drive,” Sogja said.
Aris Baez, a taxi driver from the Dominican Republic, said he considered the bill discriminatory and a violation of civil rights. “It’s very uncomfortable you asking the person about ‘You are a prostitute?’ That’s not very comfortable for the women. I don’t consider that very respectful, because we try to behave with courtesy.”
During a December hearing, Council member James Vacca said the sex trafficking industry relies on both legal and illegal for-hire vehicles.
“Neither I nor Councilwoman [Julissa] Ferreras seek to condemn an industry so vital to our city’s life and economy,” said Vacca, according to a transcript. “What we want is justice for trafficked women, what we want is to force the traffickers and pimps out of business by making it unprofitable to brutally exploit women.”
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