Open-Air Prostitution and Human Trafficking Crisis on Queens’ Roosevelt Avenue

0:00 Speaker 1 Sunday morning. Well, lynnswarriors.org. Brought to us by Lynn Shaw and Protecting Our Children. What’s happening this week in that we’re going to protect our children this week?

0:15 Speaker 2 Good morning, John. I want to talk about something that is local, but why it matters nationally. John, have you heard of the Market of Sweethearts on Roosevelt Avenue? Have you heard of this? No. No. Okay, I’m going to tell you what this is and what it is doing to local communities, businesses, families, and our kids. Every parent,

0:37 every business owner, every elected official, every New Yorker, and every American who believes children deserve to grow up in a safe community should listen to this. Roosevelt Avenue, the main strip, okay, in Queens, is referred to as the market of sweethearts. Now, look. That is referring to prostitution.

0:57 So we’re confronting a system that is allowing right now in New York City, New York State, this prostitution 24 hours a day. Prostitution equals human trafficking. So we’ve got illegal brothels lining Roosevelt Avenue. We have other quality of life types of problems going on. And families live in this neighborhood all along Roosevelt Avenue. They’ve got to walk

1:21 kids to school, to church. People run businesses. Senior citizens are trying to go about their daily lives and confront it. I can’t tell you the phone calls and emails I get from people living in the whole Roosevelt Avenue strip, and it’s long, about what’s going on. So what has happened? Now, let’s be fair. It didn’t just start under Mayor Mamdani, okay?

1:41 This goes back to Bill de Blasio. And under Eric Adams, we cleaned it up, and we had things in the New York Post, and, well, clean it up, you know, John, it means they moved to another neighborhood. But it was cleaned up, and people were happy that their kids didn’t have to see it because Parents are having to explain

1:56 to their children what’s going on, you know, in these women in these shorts and things like that. They don’t want to explain to four-year-olds what’s happening. And, again, this is not about any kind of politics for us at the Warriors. It’s about public safety, human dignity, families, and kids.

2:11 But here’s the thing. Our current mayor, Mamdani, he believes in decriminalizing prostitution offenses. And he’s been a major part around this political debate surrounding Roosevelt and you. They’re not doing anything. All of this prostitution has increased. We know where there’s prostitution, even though you may not see it.

2:30 Children are involved behind the scenes. And under Adams, we’ll give him credit, he launched something called Operation Restore Roosevelt. And again, he was addressing everything. We were making some inroads. And now it’s worse than ever it’s being reported. So why this is important in New York? Because New York is considered a leader state in the nation. And if

2:51 it’s happening like this and nobody’s looking at it, John, it’s going to come to your neighborhood, rest assured. And families shouldn’t have to navigate this adult sexual activity with their kids as part of their ordinary daily routine. My mother reported to me the other day she was trying to go to the supermarkets. And she had her two

3:08 kids with her. And as some was asking, like, what’s going on here? And he didn’t understand. She was forced into explaining things she didn’t want to even have to explain. So, look, our kids deserve safety. Our families deserve safety. Look, the question isn’t whether someone has the right to exist. The question is whether a city, a state, a local area,

3:27 a rural area, whatever it is, they’re allowing, John, all this commercial sexual activity to become normalized. How about local businesses affecting? People don’t want to go to them when all of this is happening on the sidewalks and front. So, look, the other thing is we have to go after the sex buyers. We have to go after, you know, the

3:46 pimps and traffickers and not just the prostituted people. We don’t even call them prostitutes because we know up to 97% are forced into this, which is a definition coercion of human trafficking. This is an important discussion to really have.

4:00 So our city is not doing a very good job right now. Our mayor is failing at all this. I’m very worried because he does support decriminalizing all of this sexual activity. What does this mean for our communities? And parents should speak up in their communities. Business owners need to speak up. Neighborhood associations, look, our churches have to

4:19 speak up. We have to come together because Roosevelt Avenue, the main strip, this belongs to the community, and it belongs to the families. So I’m telling everybody, use your voice, speak up, and support victims, and ask to enforce the law and respect our families, and we can demand better from City Hall.

4:37 Speaker 1 Lynn, sure, you’re 100% right, but that is going to be a tough one. You know, I always tell you the truth and I always tell you the way things are because they close them up on one block, they open up on the next block. And I wish there was a better solution.

4:56 Speaker 2 Well, we’ve got to fight for it, and we’ve got to keep using our voices. We’ve elected these officials. We elected our mayor. Look, law enforcement, we need to give them the resources to fight all this. That’s the number one complaint, and we’ve got to keep chipping away at it because it is so bad right now, John, that

5:11 people do not want to leave their homes, and then they’re ordering in groceries. not going to local businesses. Businesses are failing. Where are we going to be in two years with all of this? It is horrendous, and people are scared. So speak up. Linswarriors.org will help you, tell you who to write to, who to call. We’ve got

5:27 to keep fighting it. We can never say it’s impossible. We’ve got to keep going at it and use everything in our power. These are our families, our communities. They belong to us, not to the criminals.

5:38 Speaker 1 Thank you so much for coming on, and God bless you, and let’s pray for our kids. Thank you so much.

5:44 Speaker 2 Thank you, John.