This site symbolizes the side both secure and assumed “sex work” in Belgium, a country that claims among the most progressive legislation in Europe, even if cases of abuse and exploitation remain.
“I am not a victim, I chose to be there and I like what I do,” says Kiana, 32, welcoming an AFP team behind her window to show her work frame: a double lit bed of a dim light, surmounted by quantity of chains and other Sado-Maso accessories.
Party at 18 from her native Romania, Kiana (who prefers to silence her name) first worked in Germany before arriving in Belgium. She rents one of the 51 windows of the Villa Tinto to exercise five days a week.
“Today my mother knows what I am doing,” continues the young woman, mini-shorts in black leather and high heels. “For other members of my family, I work in nails and tattoos”.
For “Mel”, another sex worker, which has become a star on the Tiktok network where she answers questions on her profession, everything changed in Belgium in 2022 when a law authorized her activity to get out of the shadows.
“I was fed up with lying, to pretend to hairdresser or masseuse. This law made it possible to change the eyes of people,” said the Antwerp, known by the pseudo of Meliciousss.
In March 2022, the Belgian Parliament voted for a reform of the sexual penal code including softening on prostitution advertising for those over 18.
A “historic” law
It is now authorized for an adult to praise “their own sexual services” provided they exercise in “a specifically dedicated place”, like the back of a window, stipulates the text.
Another development praised by associations: professions with a commercial link with prostitutes, a banker, a website creator or a real estate owner, are no longer liable to prosecution. Posting remains illegal, as well as the prostitution of minors.
This law, described as “historic” by the human rights league, brought Belgium into the camp of so-called “regulatory” countries-with Germany and the Netherlands-, as opposed to “abolitionists” (France, Sweden, etc.).
“Even if the stigma still exists, we are in a way out of shame,” summarizes Marianne Chargois, a sex worker (TDS) and activist of Utsopi, the Lance Iron Association in the defense of the rights of these people.
In Belgium, assessments in the number of “TDS” range from 9,000 to 26,000, according to Utsopi, women in nine out of ten. There is no official figure.
Despite the legislative developments, several associations, including those fighting against the trafficking of human beings, continue to alert the large “invisible” part of prostitution.
And the fact that for a large majority of women exercising this activity would be under stress, financial, linked to addictions or for the benefit of traffickers.
In March, police dismantled a criminal network suspected of having sexually exploited around thirty Chinese women in Belgium. Seven suspects, also Chinese, were arrested.
“Flexibility of work”
According to Charles-Eric Clesse, a Belgian magistrate expert from these questions, many women are sent from abroad without a residence permit to exercise clandestinely and sometimes under control.
“For prostitutes of African origin, in more than 90% of cases it is the result of human beings,” he said to AFP.
The company debate was relaunched on December 1, 2024, with the entry into force of a new legalization offering the possibility for the TDS to sign an employment contract with an “approved” employer.
The text was presented by the authorities as offering more rights, in particular strengthened social protection, compared to the status of self -employed, the most popular.
But the measurement is flopping for the moment: in five months, the Ministry of Employment has only received three requests for approval, according to a spokesperson. These three files are currently being studied by the courts which must verify the CV of employers and their possible judicial history.
In the camp of supporters of the abolition, the Isala association demanded at the start of the year the cancellation of the 2024 law, accused of encouraging pimping.
The legislation would give more power to the operators of brothels to force women in a precarious situation, estimates Isala, joined by other detractors. A debate will take place before the Belgian Constitutional Court.
The owner of the Villa Tinto, for his part, dismisses the use of the employment contract. “I do not see myself in the role of the one who would present customers to workers, from an ethical point of view, it is a step too far,” says Karin Vander Elst.
“And the principle with windows, which is most important is the flexibility of work and the choice of schedules”.
