Sophie, a s*x worker in Belgium, shares her experience of working while nine months pregnant.
“I was having s*x with clients just a week before giving birth,” she says.
Balancing her job with raising five children has been “really hard.” After having her fifth child by Caesarean section, Sophie was advised to rest for six weeks, but she returned to work immediately because she couldn’t afford to take time off.
Her life could have been easier if she had access to maternity leave, which would have been paid by an employer. Thanks to a groundbreaking new law in Belgium, that is now a reality.
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The law, the first of its kind globally, grants sex workers employment contracts, health insurance, pensions, maternity leave, and sick days, treating s*x work as any other job.
Sophie describes the new law as “an opportunity for us to exist as people.” There are millions of sex workers worldwide, and while s*x work was decriminalised in Belgium in 2022, it remains legal in several countries such as Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, and Turkey. However, this law marks the first time sex workers have been granted official employment rights and contracts.
“This is a radical step forward and the best we’ve seen anywhere globally,” says Erin Kilbride, a researcher at Human Rights Watch. “We need other countries to follow this example.”