Warning - contains descriptions of a sexual nature
“I had to work while I was nine months pregnant,” says Sophie, a sex worker in Belgium. “I was having sex with clients one week before giving birth.”
She juggles her job with being a mother of five - which is “really hard”.
When Sophie had her fifth child by Caesarean, she was told she needed bed rest for six weeks. But she says that wasn’t an option, and she went back to work immediately.
“I couldn’t afford to stop because I needed the money.”
Her life would have been much easier had she had a right to maternity leave, paid by her employer.
Under a new law in Belgium - the first of its kind in the world - this will now be the case. Sex workers will be entitled to official employment contracts, health insurance, pensions, maternity leave and sick days. Essentially, it will be treated like any other job.
“It’s an opportunity for us to exist as people,” Sophie says.
There are tens of millions of sex workers worldwide. Sex work was decriminalised in Belgium in 2022 and is legal in several countries including Germany, Greece, the Netherlands and Turkey. But establishing employment rights and contracts is a global first.
“This is radical, and it’s the best step we have seen anywhere in the world so far,” says Erin Kilbride, a researcher at Human Rights Watch. “We need every country to be moving in that direction.”
Critics say the trade causes trafficking, exploitation and abuse - which this law will not prevent.
“It is...
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