In Belgium, this will soon be a reality: male and female prostitutes will be employed and brothel owners will operate completely legally. Two years after decriminalizing sex work, the Belgian Parliament last week adopted the very first law regulating employment in the sector.
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From our correspondent in Brussels,
There Belgium thus joins Germany, the Netherlands and New Zealand, which already authorize forms of employment in the sector. This is the first time that these employment contract are the subject of a specific legal text. For Belgian male and female prostitutes, it is above all an additional option in terms of status.
Since the decriminalization of sex work in 2022, they could already operate as self-employed but this involves complex accounting. Wage employment can therefore provide simpler access to social rights. And to help those who wish to easily exit prostitution, the text allows sex workers to leave their jobs without notice, without this preventing them from accessing unemployment benefits.
A law that is debated
On the one hand, there are the supporters of the text, among them the sex worker associations. The latter believe that this will make it possible to better combat pimping and improve the living and working conditions of prostitutes.
On the other hand, certain feminist associations denounce a normalization of the exploitation of women’s bodies and fear an increase in the prostitution market and trafficking networks. They are worried about the fate of migrant and undocumented prostitutes, a real blind spot in the law since they will not be able to access paid employment and therefore risk being even more precarious and vulnerable.
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