A nonprofit in New York City is accused of making a sex trafficking problem worse by giving condoms to prostitutes in the Roosevelt Avenue corridor.
A van belonging to the AIDS Center of Queens County was seen recently on 41st Avenue where workers doled out the condoms, the New York Post reported Monday.
The area, known as the “Market of Sweethearts,” has long been a problem for neighbors who want the illicit activity stopped and their community cleaned up.
A leader of the local group called the Restore Roosevelt Avenue Coalition said the organization receives daily complaints about the issues.
“Residents call us every day about crime, drugs, brothels, and street walkers,” Rosa Sanchez explained. “Instead of more enforcement, public money is being used to supply free condoms to the same people turning tricks on our residential blocks and trespassing in building lobbies. There are already condoms in every pharmacy and bodega. This is lunacy.”
On the AIDS Center of Queens County website, the nonprofit said all of its services are provided at no cost.
“The nonprofit has more than $40 million in active contracts — at least $34 million with the city and $10 million with the state — to provide supportive housing, prevent HIV and sexually transmitted diseases and adolescent pregnancy, and offer syringe exchange to drug abusers and other health care programs,” the Post article reads.
Meanwhile, the New York State Department of Health website said it has a “condom program.”
“The AIDS Institute has provided free condoms and other safer sex materials to organizations serving sexually active New Yorkers with or at risk for HIV and STIs since 1983. The effort was enhanced in 2007 with the on-line New York State Condom Program (NYSCondom),” their site says.
In September the Post reported the number of prostitutes increased and prostitution-related arrests dropped by 60 percent in the Roosevelt Avenue area since socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) took office.
According to Exodus Cry, the scourge of sex trafficking would end if men stopped buying sex because the practice is a “result of male demand for prostitution,” their website reads.
