An ex-s-x worker who previously worked on the ‘Market of Sweethearts’ in New York has described how she was forced to sleep with twenty men on her first night.
What happened
Kika Certa arrived from Venezuela in the Big Apple after falling in love with a man and was under the impression she would be staying with his family.
Instead, Certa found herself on Roosevelt Avenue, also known as the ‘Market of Sweethearts’, in the Queens borough of the city after being forced into work as a pr-stitute in the early 1990s.
Certa told the New York Post she had decided to speak about her ordeal after hearing Mayor Eric Adams that migrants were being used in the s-x trade in Queens.
She shares the worst night of her life
Using a pseudonym, Certa told the outlet with tears streaming down her cheeks: ‘I slept with 20 men my first night. I didn’t get to say who. They just came in one after another. That was the worst night of my life.’
The 51-year-old said she had been offered a place to stay in the city after meeting and falling in love with a man named Daniel in Venezuela.
Certa was introduced to his cousin Sandra, who lived in the city and was who she would be staying with.
How Certa was trapped
After arriving at JFK Airport in 1992, the offer of a better life changed and Sandra took $3,000 she had saved and her passport from her after touching down.
Certa said: ‘I saved $3,000 that I brought here to the United States. ‘I remember getting out of the airport and she immediately took my passport, and she took my money.
‘After two weeks, Certa was sat down by the pair and told she would have to pr-stitute herself to pay a debt on behalf of Daniel.
She recalled: ‘[Sandra] said Daniel was living here and he owed her a lot of money.
‘And then she said ‘You’re going to pay the money and the way you’re gonna pay is you’re going to pr-stitute yourself.’
Certa was taken to a house at 92nd and Roosevelt Avenue, given the name Lily and put to work as a s-x worker.
She said: ‘When she took me there, she said, “This is a new girl. She’s fresh. She’s just 20 years old”.
Certa said that every time she opened the door to a knock there was a different man standing there, who paid $35 each and would tip her a few dollars.
She added: ‘I had no spirit, no soul. I just get up in the morning and go and eat something, go back to sleep, waiting for the time I have to go back to work.’
Certa told the Post she tried to hide from Sandra but always was found, and that she had been arrested five times.
Eventually she demanded her passport back and agreed to pay the madam more money for her freedom.
Certa is now married and has three daughters, but has been disturbed about recent reports of Venezuelan women she sees working in brothels on the same street.
She said: ‘They’re not there because they want to be. It’s because they’ve been forced to somehow and somehow they get broken. After they get broken, there is no way out.’
