“I had to work until nine months pregnant,” sex worker tells BBC. After a cesarean delivery, she was supposed to remain bedridden for six weeks. But, as a mother of five, she couldn't afford it financially and went back to work. “Life would have been much simpler if she had benefited from maternity leave, paid by her employer,” notes the British public media. The law did not provide for this at the time, but that has just changed.
The 1is December, a new law came into force in Belgium, “the first of its kind on a global scale”. “Sex workers will now have the right to official contracts, social security, pensions, sick leave and maternity leave.”
“In short, this job will be treated like any other.”
As the media points out, prostitution is legal in several countries, including Germany, the Netherlands and Turkey. Belgium decriminalized it in 2022 and marks, with this contractual framework, a world first.
Four freedoms
This law is the result of long-term work, explains Daan Bauwens, director of Utsopi, an association for the defense of women workers and
