Belgian Sex Workers Gain Access to Paid Leave, Right To Refuse Sex Acts
In Belgium, sex workers can now sign formal employment contracts. That grants them access to the same benefits that other Belgian workers can access, plus some specialized protections.
Under the new law, which took effect Sunday, sex work employees have access to paid public holidays and to Belgium’s version of Social Security. Sex workers will also have access to paid sick days, maternity leave, and health insurance plans.
“Today is a very historical day for us sex workers,” posted Mel Meliciousss—part of the Belgian sex workers union known as UTSOPI—on Instagram.
The new law also stipulates that sex workers have a right to refuse particular sex acts and clients without retaliation, setting up a mediation scheme for this all-too-common situation.
From Decriminalization to Employment Contracts
Prostitution and other forms of sex work are broadly legal in Belgium. In 2022, the country became the first in modern Europe to officially decriminalize paying for sex, being paid for sex, and facilitating such transactions. As I noted at the time, a
number of European countries have legalized prostitution. That means it’s allowed under specific and highly regulated circumstances but still a crime outside these parameters. For instance, in Greece, sex workers must register with the state and have a professional certificate, get twice-monthly medical exams, and work in a licensed brothel in order for their labor to be legal. Other European countries have instituted asymmetrical criminalization, in which selling sex is allowed (under certain circumstances) but paying for it is not. But Belgium is the first European country to officially decriminalize selling sex, paying for it, and working with sex workers, under a proposal put forth by Federal Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborn and approved by Parliament last week.
The change meant more than just a shift in the way sex work was policed. It meant that sex work could be formally recognized by authorities as a valid form of employment. A sex worker applying for a bank loan could list this as her source of income. A sex worker who lost his job could apply with the state for unemployment benefits. And so on.
Decriminalization was the first step. But while the law said sex workers could legally be self-employed or hire third parties to help them in their sex work efforts, it did not allow for sex workers to be formally hired as employees.
That next step came in a law that passed in May and took effect yesterday. It defines sex work as “the performance of acts of prostitution in execution of a contract of employment as a sex worker”and says adults “may enter into an employment contract as a sex worker.” This grants sex workers access to the types of employee benefits and social welfare schemes that employees of other types of businesses are eligible for. (Notably, “sex workers will be able to work under hotel-restaurant-cafe…contracts that do not mention sex work” to protect their anonymity, according to the UTSOPI website.)
A Right to Refuse Sex Acts
The new law gained international attention when it was passed, with coverage largely focusing on a provision concerning sex worker employees who refuse sex acts.
As I wrote in this newsletter in May, “the law imposes obligations on both businesses that employ sex workers and on sex workers who work for those businesses.” This includes a provision stating that “every sex worker has the right to refuse a client,” that “every sex worker has the right to refuse a sexual act,” and that “every sex worker has the right to interrupt a sexual act at any time.”
Writing a sex work employment contract is tricky, because unlike at, say, a factory job—where the parameters of the work tend to be well-known in advance and can be laid out in a contract—”you cannot forc
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