“I’m so chaotic because I’m so thrilled,” says Victoria, a former sex worker and the president of Belgium’s Sex Workers’ Union, UTSOPI, at the end of our call. We’ve just spent 40 minutes discussing the country’s monumental new law that gives sex workers the same rights as every other employee in Belgium: sick days, annual leave, maternity pay, pensions, health insurance, and unemployment benefits. The legislation is the first of its kind in the world. “I could talk for hours about it,” she adds.

Of course, Victoria – who worked as an escort for over a decade before quitting three years ago – hasn’t been “chaotic”. But she has been passionate, engaging and boldly candid. She’s spoken solidly for nearly an hour about the tangible effects this law will have on sex workers’ lives and work, and reflected on how different her own work might have been had this law been in place a decade ago. It’s a reasonable reaction to a radical and historic moment in sex work history. “I put my shoulders underneath the work that has to be done because [when I was escorting], we had to work in very unsafe conditions,” she continues. “But now we have the tools to fight exploitation.”

Although the law change was approved in May – with 93 votes for, 33 abstentions, and zero votes against – it only just came into effect on Sunday (December 1). It will enable sex workers who engage in physical sexual contact to work under an employment contract, giving them access to social security and protecting them against exploitative employers. It follows Belgium’s historic decriminalisation of sex work in 2022 – only the second country in the world to do so at a national level (following New Zealand, which decriminalised sex work in 2003).

Sex workers and allies were behind this immense achievement. Sex workers’ union UTSOPI, Violett, an organisation that provides medical and social support for sex workers, and Espace P, a sex worker advocacy group, all lobbied the government for years and eventually helped draft the labour legislation, with sex workers at the table for every meeting. “It’s like the cherry on the cake,” says UTSOPI’s director Daan Bauwens, who’s been leading the negotiations, of the new law. “It was so much harder getting sex work decriminalised because we had to change the way society saw sex work.”

The fight for decriminalisation really gained traction in Belgium during the pandemic, when, like their counterparts around the world, sex workers found themselves unable to work, but not entitled to any government support schemes. Sex workers and allies took to the streets in protest – and it was picked up by the media. “I think it broke a lot of stereotypes about sex workers,” says Bauwens. “These weren’t unwilling, voiceless victims who didn’t have choices or skills, they were organised and they had a political agenda.”

Sex work wasn’t illegal in Belgium before 2022, but while sex workers and clients weren’t criminalised, third parties such as landlords, lawyers, drivers and accountants who worked with sex workers were. As well as making their work significantly more difficult and dangerous, this also meant that sex workers had no say over their working conditions. “When I worked with an escort service, I couldn’t say no,” explains Victoria. “If I told them I wanted to use a condom, I wouldn’t get any clients. They didn’t say I couldn’t [wear a condom], but they told me, ‘If you work without one, we don’t have clients for you’.”

I hope this is an example for other countries. People deserve to do their jobs in a safe way — including sex workers

Victoria recalls another instance when she noticed, while he was undressing, that a client had an STI. “I didn’t want to do the job, so I told him to see a doctor and I left,” she recalls. “I phoned the escort service to tell them I left and that it wasn’t safe for a colleague – because they could just send another girl to go there – but instead of being supportive, they didn’t give me any clients for the next two weeks. They punished me [by stopping me] from earning money.”

Mel, a sex worker who posts about her work on TikTok, tells me about similar experiences she’s had working in brothels or with escort agencies. “There was an obligation to do oral sex without a condom,” she reveals, “which, under the new rules, is not OK. I also had to work with clients I didn’t want to. There was one man I hated, but [the brothel] said I [couldn’t refuse him]; and when I did, I didn’t get clients for days afterwards.”

She adds that extras – like anal sex or if the client wants to finish in a sex worker’s mouth – tend to cost €50 more and, in the past, it had to be split between the sex worker and the “lady of the house”. “That’s disgusting,” says Mel. “I also heard stories from other colleagues who had to work until the last week of their pregnancy because they don’t have any rights [and couldn’t afford to stop working].”

As well as all the employment rights afforded to non-sex workers, the new labour law gives sex workers extra protections, including: the right to refuse a client or sexual act, the right to interrupt a sexual act at any time, the right to perform a sexual act in the manner that they wish (eg with a condom), and, if there are dangers to a sex worker’s safety, they can refuse to sit behind a window or advertise their services.

An employer can’t fire or penalise a sex worker if they invoke any of these rights. And, unlike other workers in Belgium, who lose their right to unemployment benefits if they leave their job voluntarily, a sex worker can now end their employment contract at any time, without a notice period, and can still claim these benefits. Sex workers can also maintain their anonymity by working under hotel-restaurant-cafe (horeca) contracts that don’t mention sex work. 

There are stipulations on who can become an employer of sex workers and rules they must follow, too. First, they must apply for recognition and have a registered office or branch office in Belgium. Then, they mustn’t have a criminal conviction for crimes including, but not limited to, sexual assault, non-consensual intimate image abuse, voyeurism, abuse of prostitution, including of minors, murder, assault, torture, kidnapping, theft, extortion, and fraud. Employers must also adhere to three key rules: a ‘reference person’ must be available during working hours to ensure that the work is being organised and done safely; each room that sex workers work in must be equipped with an alarm button, or, if they’re working off-site, they must be given a mobile alarm button, each of which immediately contacts the reference person; and, finally, unions and sex worker support organisations are allowed access to the workplace at all times. Employers or third parties are liable to prosecution if they take monetary or sexual advantage of a sex worker – for example, demanding sexual acts or abnormally high fees for a particular service.

“This law is an important development for sex workers in Belgium,” says Anna Blus, an Amnesty International researcher in women’s rights and gender justice in Europe. “It has the potential to better protect sex workers’ rights and can lead to improved safety, health and standard of living outcomes for sex workers.”

Both Mel and Victoria are hopeful that the law will influence how they’re treated by the police and medical staff, too. Mel tells me about a time she tried to report a client to the police, but had her complaint dismissed because she was “putting [herself] in danger” by being a sex worker. “Just because this is my job, someone’s just allowed to lure me into a dangerous situation?” she asks rhetorically. “Fuck off.” But now, she adds, “when something bad happens, they have to take it seriously”. (Though time will tell whether attitudes change in practice; the police aren’t exactly known for their championing of women, let alone marginalised women.)

It’s very important for a sex worker to be able to say, ‘This is my limit’, ‘I don’t want to do that’, or, ‘That’s not the way I want to do it’

None of this would have been possible without decriminalisation, which, says Victoria, has already helped reframe perceptions of sex work in Belgium. But the new labour law goes further than any country has before, officially acknowledging that sex work is work and finally giving sex workers the basic workers’ rights they deserve. “It’s very important for a sex worker to be able to say, ‘This is my limit’, ‘I don’t want to do that’, or, ‘That’s not the way I want to do it’,” says Victoria. And, even though self-employed sex workers aren’t entitled to these benefits (just like non-sex-working self-employed people aren’t), Victoria believes the law will still help them access “the same attitudes” from the state and the public. “Trust me, it’s already changed,” she asserts. “Many young people I work with say they always work with a condom. That’s already a major difference between now and pre-decriminalisation.”

That’s not to say life is easy for sex workers in Belgium now, nor that the fight for their rights is over. There remains a huge amount of stigma and discrimination, especially in the finance sector, with sex workers still being denied bank accounts, despite it being legal for them to open one. And, as mentioned, not all sex workers benefit from this new law, which doesn’t do anything to address the societal inequalities that lead a lot of people into sex work in the first place. Plus, as UTSOPI has pointed out, there’s a risk that local authorities could hide behind the words ‘safety’ and ‘hygiene’ in the law to enforce strict regulations that make sex work almost impossible in their constituencies.

This is, after all, a divisive law, with critics accusing lawmakers of “normalising” an “inherently violent profession” – a bad faith framing that, as Blus says, “risks sending a message to the public and to perpetrators of violence that sex workers can be abused without consequences”. There’s no denying that sex work is a risky activity, but, observes Mel, “there are rules and laws [in every other aspect of our lives] to protect us as human beings, so if sex work is really such a dangerous place, then why no laws for sex work?”

Still, even with the new law in place, there’s work to be done. “While decriminalisation and human rights-compliant laws and policies are crucial steps, they are not a panacea for all violations and abuses facing sex workers and the discrimination and stigma they face,” says Blus. “It remains to be seen how this law will be implemented in practice.” Blus adds that Belgian authorities must closely monitor the application of the law, with “the meaningful participation of current sex workers themselves, in particular from marginalised groups”, who face intersecting forms of discrimination based on ethnicity, race, gender and gender identity, disability, socio-economic circumstances, migration status, or drug use. “Steps aiming at addressing systemic discrimination and stigma are also crucial for advancing sex workers’ human rights.”

These gargantuan inequalities and injustices can’t be changed overnight, though. The decriminalisation of sex work in Belgium was a revolutionary moment for sex workers, and this labour law is yet another step forward in achieving equal rights in work and society. “We are just now at the start of a huge transition,” says Bauwens. “There are many other conditions that have to be fulfilled for us to see concrete effects on the ground. We’re very glad that sex workers have these rights, but it’s still theory at the moment; it still has to be realised.”

But right now, there’s cause for celebration. “I woke up on Sunday morning and I was so proud,” concludes Victoria. “I was so happy, I couldn’t stop smiling. I hope this is an example for other countries. People deserve to do their jobs in a safe way – including sex workers.”