Press Release
Collective of migrant massage and sex workers sues NYC agency over its refusal to release public information
Workers say the NYC Dept. of Buildings has discriminatorily targeted and harassed them for the past 4 years
NEW YORK CITY — Today, Red Canary Song, an advocacy organization composed of Asian and migrant massage workers and sex workers, sued the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) over their failure to respond to Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests to release documents related to inspections and enforcement against massage parlors. The FOIL request seeks documents that are key for the organization and the public to understand the city’s increasingly aggressive use of red tape and regulations to target workers in the past 4 years. The harassment includes ticketing, fines, and other enforcement actions unfairly targeting massage businesses. The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) filed the suit on behalf of Red Canary Song in New York County Supreme Court.
“Since the pandemic hit, our members, most of whom are Asian or other migrant workers, have been unfairly targeted and harassed by the city,” said Lisa, the leader of Red Canary Song’s Chinese outreach team. “I have worked for over a decade in massage businesses in Flushing, and in the past few years, I have personally received multiple DOB citations that have cost thousands of dollars in remediation and jeopardize my ability to live and work. Our livelihoods are at stake here, and we demand accountability by this city agency that should be helping New Yorkers instead of hurting us with this racist form of policing.”
Lisa has herself been targeted by the DOB for her work in massage businesses and has requested that only her first name be used.
“The Department of Buildings has pursued enforcement actions against Red Canary Song members for years, yet it alleges that it is ‘in no way’ involved in regulating massage parlors to avoid revealing its policies and practices,” said Jane Shim, director of AALDEF’s Stop Asian Hate project, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of Lisa’s organization. “This makes the public’s right to know even more urgent—where there’s smoke, there’s fire. The government has a responsibility to be transparent to the people, and this is especially the case when residents feel targeted by the agencies that are supposed to be serving their needs.”
Massage licensing laws like the regulations that incentivize the DOB to discriminatorily target workers like Lisa betray their true intentions to curb human trafficking, explains Professor Elena Shih. Shih is the director of Brown University’s Human Trafficking Research Cluster at the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, where she is conducting a now four-year long research project in collaboration with Red Canary Song.
“Recent attempts to combat human trafficking at Asian massage businesses have unleashed a rash of discriminatory policing throughout North America,” said Shih, who is also an organizer for Red Canary Song. “Counterintuitively, anti-trafficking efforts make it more difficult for Asian migrant body workers to live and work safely, subjecting them to brutal economic instability and state violence.”
Referencing observations from the Brown University research, Shih added, “Most troubling is the recent dispersion of policing functions beyond police officers themselves, but to public health, licensure, and (in the case of this lawsuit) NYC’s Department of Buildings to enforce the policing of Asian body work.”
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For additional information, contact:
Stuart J. Sia
AALDEF Communications Director
media@aaldef.org
Elena Shih
Red Canary Song Core Organizer
Brown University Manning Assistant Professor of American Studies
elena_shih@brown.edu