The decriminalisation of sex work in Belgium: emancipation or oppression?
Introduction
In May 2024, the Belgium government voted to grant sex workers in an employment contract workers’ rights, refining the rights provided by the vote for the decriminalisation of Belgian sex workers (again, under employment contracts) in March 2022. Unlike decriminalisation alone, the 2024 vote granted this category of Belgian sex workers access to the nation’s social security system, in other words access to health insurance, maternity leave, pensions, and other employment benefits. However, while this new system does, in many ways, improve the lives’ of sex workers across Belgium, opposition to this new law – even from sex workers themselves – has created a divide that I will explore in this article. The first two sections of this article will focus on the ways in which the new laws have emancipated Belgian sex workers, and how decriminalisation in general liberates sex workers, looking at the benefits of access to workers’ rights, as well as the ‘harm’ and ‘wrong’ that arises from criminalisation systems. The final section of this article will explore the reasons given for the new Belgian law in fact oppressing sex workers, drawing on opinions and experiences of Belgian sex workers and how the 2024 vote removed the liberties that self-employment entails. Despite this, the decriminalisation of sex work and access to employment rights provides significantly more advantages than problems, providing a goal that should be the basis of classification of sex work globally.
Access to Workers’ Rights
The recognition of sex work as a valid form of employment gives way to a multitude of benefits that sex workers have long been deprived. In Article 3 of the 2024 Act, the status of sex worker employment contracts is detailed:
The sex worker employment contract is an employment contract within the meaning of the law of 3 July 1978 on employment contracts.
All provisions of labor law and social security apply to it, subject to the exceptions provided for in this law.
The specific rights of sex workers in an employment contract are displayed in Article 7 to 10 of the 2024 Act, and include: the right to refuse to partake in a sexual act; the right for absence from work; the right to well-being checks (under certain conditions); the right to terminate an employment contract without notice; and the right to deny the entry of an employment contract.
As will be explored in more detail below, many sex workers are self-employed, operating as ‘gig workers’ who enjoy flexibility and financial immediacy. This, as will be discussed, demonstrates some serious flaws with the Act which, in Article 5, strictly limits the scope of the Act to those sex workers in employment contracts. However, it also provides many benefits, including the rights to maternity leave and pensions under Belgium’s social security system.
By encouraging sex workers to enter employment contracts, the Belgian Act provides sex workers with the liberties and protections they were previously deprived. The true impact of this Act is demonstrated by the experiences of sex workers who, prior to the new laws, were often pressured to continue working regardless of personal circumstances: one Belgian sex worker recalled in a recent interview how, after a caesarean delivery of her fifth child that required six weeks of bed rest, she was back at work immediately as she “couldn’t afford to stop”. Not only does the introduction of parental leave relieve sex workers of the ‘harm’ examined in the next section, by providing sex workers the same rights as ‘traditional’ workers this endorses the validity of their chosen work and solidifies their status as ‘workers’.
Harm and Wrong
Perhaps the most obvious argument for decriminalisation, the ‘harm’ and ‘wrong’ entwined with the criminalisation of sex work worldwide has been and is a major cause of concern. Explored in depth by Ekinci, the criminalisation of sex work should, ideally, be a result of the evaluation of two main principles: the ‘harm’ of the sector, and the ‘wrong’ of the sector.
To summarise, the ‘harm’ principle favoured by the author is that, for an act to be criminalised on the basis of harm, ‘there should be a harmful condition in which harm perceptibly affects others’: it is not enough for the majority population to state it opposes their morals, it must cause actual harm. Similarly, the ‘wrong’ should be ‘sufficiently serious’, however the way in which this is assessed differs: the ‘wrong’ should affect ‘all individual members of the community’, and it should concern individuals’ rights to the extent that it requires criminal censure. As concluded by Ekinci, the criminalisation of sex work is likely to cause more harm than it would mitigate. However, the extent of this claim is a point of contention amongst academics.
The concepts of ‘harm’ and ‘wrong’ are prevalent amongst many criticisms of both criminalisation and decriminalisation. There are two main ‘harms’ that arise from criminalised sex work: psychological and physical. Comte focuses heavily on the psychological harm that the criminalisation of sex work produces, how the ‘whore’ stigmatisation surrounding the profession significantly impacts their self-esteem, ability to experience sexual pleasure, and the pride they may feel (like other workers) for being skilled and competent employees. In many instances, it is not the work itself that workers regard as a ‘violent’ experience, but the degradation and stigma that stems from it. These two features are what have maintained sex work’s criminalisation, having been recognised as the key reasons for the success of the US’s crusade against decriminalisation. For many, sex work is seen as synonymous with sex trafficking and, therefore, ‘inherently evil’.
According to Comte, this level of degradation and stereotyping is one of the major causes of sex workers’ harm. Therefore, rather than simply criminalising or decriminalising sex work, to reduce the harm experienced by sex workers (which, in some form, seems to be the main reason given for all arguments) society needs to ‘fight against prejudice’ and remove ‘the stigma attached to present moral standards regarding sexuality’. Though these aims are noble and would be the obvious solution to the stigma problem, the author fails to provide methods of achieving this, making the goal, in many ways, impossible.
While in many ways the actual positive impact of the 2024 Act may not be obvious, as prostitution among other forms of sex work is often viewed as inherently harmful and control-based, evidence suggests there is a correlation between the decriminalisation of sex work and sex workers’ faith in the justice system. Giving sex workers access to workers’ rights and providing them with access to the criminal justice system empowers sex workers, giving them the confidence to refuse and report indecent behaviour and to set and maintain boundaries, characteristics that are typical of the ‘regular’ workplace but have long bypassed the sphere of sex work.
As mentioned above, one of the most significant harms posed by the criminalisation of sex work is the disregard of their rights, including, perhaps most importantly, the right to report instances of sexual assault. Victoria, an ex-sex worker in Belgium, noted in a recent interview with the BBC her encounter with the police in 2022 after she was raped by a client, and the police made her feel at fault for the experience. From a first-hand perspective, Victoria believes only good can come from this law change: “This law gives people the tools to make us safer.”
Despite these changes, faith in the criminal justice system often remains low. An example of this is amongst sex workers in Aotearoa New Zealand who, in many instances, see reporting frequent minor acts of sexual violence as impractical. Nonetheless, decriminalisation as it currently exists is undoubtedly a step in the right direction. In fact, the same chapter that explores this correlation also stresses the importance of choice for sex workers, such as providing access to healthcare and giving them the option of ‘whether to engage with the criminal justice system’, access that in Belgium has been granted via the 2024 Act.
Adopting Ekinci’s ‘harm’ and ‘wrong’ principles of criminalisation, it is clear in many regards that the decriminalisation of sex work will most likely cause more good than bad, providing necessary protection to those that need it in this sometimes dangerous line of work.
The Liberties of Self-Employment
Despite the range of benefits that the 2024 laws in Belgium provide, for many, this is simply not enough and, in many ways, makes the situation worse for some. One of the key groups against this unionisation is the stripper sector, who firstly are divided amongst themselves regarding their classification as ‘sex workers’, and who secondly rely heavily on the liberties provided by self-employment. This section will focus on the latter.
The decriminalisation of sex work in Belgium in 2022, followed in 2024 by the increases to the benefits given to these workers, was narrowly construed to sex workers in employment contracts, neglecting the self-employed. This is demonstrated in Article 5 of the 2024 Act:
Sex work may not be carried out by a person with the main status of student. Sex work may also not be carried out under a flexi-job employment contract, nor as a casual worker.
In the UK, Sanders and Hardy found that many women chose to work as strippers due to the flexible hours, and while they wanted the benefits of autonomy and control that employment contracts attempt to give, they felt this restricted their choice too much. This is similar to other gig workers, who refuse unionisation as they believe it relieves them of the freedom they enjoy when self-employed. This is because, for many, gig work grants benefits that ‘traditional’, contracted work does not. The two most relevant advantages here are the ‘higher level of work autonomy and immediate income’, two aspects of gig working that many strippers are unwilling to be relieved of.
While it has been found that over one third of these workers were subject to financial instability, often ‘paid late, underpaid, or even never paid’ many academics, including Wu and Huang, recognise the illusory, exciting nature of the ‘benefits’ of flexibility and economic immediacy, which often overpower the negative consequences. If, perhaps, the preferred aspects of gig work (the flexibility and economic immediacy) were adopted into the ‘traditional’ working style, more strippers and self-employed sex workers would be keen to enter employment contracts and receive working benefits. This could be achieved through an increase in part-time employment contracts for sex workers, as well as zero-hours contracts that incorporate ‘traditional’ workers’ rights, as a result strengthening the protection of sex workers as a whole and reaching the full potential of decriminalisation.
Although not one of the more obvious problems that arises from decriminalising sex work – including the arguments that the decriminalisation of sex work increases sex trafficking, and the idea that it has no positive impact of women’s choice – this disadvantage applies to countries where sex work is already decriminalised, like Belgium. In many ways, the decriminalisation of sex work in Belgium has oppressed many sex workers further because, as mentioned above, it excludes the self-employed and retains the criminalisation of their work, reinforcing the control and unsafety they may already experience.
Conclusion
As seen throughout, despite the move toward equality between sex work and other forms of employment in Belgium and other nations, the controversy around the subject persists. Many of the most traditional and long-standing concerns with the legalisation of sex work continue to conflict minds, one of the most prolific being the idea that decriminalisation does not provide sex workers with as much choice as people believe. In one respect this refers to the restriction of the law to those sex workers in employment contracts,and in others to the ongoing lack of faith that sex workers have in the criminal justice system that prevents them from reporting sexual crimes. However, I would not suggest that this constitutes the law itself creating oppression, just failing in many ways to mitigate it. While these issues exist, there are many positive impacts that have arisen from the 2024 Belgian Act, including sex workers being granted social security benefits among other workers’ rights, and the legal option for sex workers to take the criminal justice path.
Therefore, although the progress made in Belgium is not sufficient enough to say that sex workers have been completely emancipated, it is a step in the right direction. To improve this, perhaps the Belgian government and other nations’ (potential) future decriminalisation Acts should include the improvement of rights of self-employed sex workers, providing them with the same rights afforded to those workers in employment contracts and allowing them the necessary provisions to ensure their safety and security in their job.
Amy Hutchison
Bibliography
Primary
Belgium Legislation
Federal Public Service Social Security Federal Public Service Justice 2024 (BE)
Secondary
Books
Sanders T and Hardy K, Flexible Workers: Labour, Regulation and the Political Economy of the Stripping Industry (1st edn, Routledge 2014)
Scoular J and others (eds), Voicing Consent (Palgrave Macmillan 2025)
Journal Articles
Comte J, ‘Decriminalization of Sex Work: Feminist Discourses in Light of Research’ (2014) 18 Sexuality & Crime 196
Cruz K, ‘Unionising Sex Workers and Other Feminists’ (2023) 33(4) Social & Legal Studies 501
Ekinci B, ‘Criminalsiation of Sex Work: A Critical Approach to Criminalsation Theories from a Human Rights Perspective’ (2024) 74 Annales de la Faculté de Droit d’Istanbul 99
Raymond J G, ‘Ten Reasons for Not Legalizing Prostitution And a Legal Response to the Demand for Prostitution’ (2003) 2 Journal of Trauma Practice 315
Weitzer R, ‘The Campaign Against Sex Work in the United States: A Successful Moral Crusade’ (2020) 17 Sexuality Research and Social Policy 399
Wu D and Huang J L, ‘Gig work and gig workers” An integrative review and agenda for future research’ (2024) 45 Journal of Organizational Behaviour 183
Websites
‘Belgian labor law for sex workers: what and how?’ (UTSOPI) <https://www.utsopi.be/our-work/decriminalisation/cadre-du-travail> accessed 28 February 2025
‘Decriminalisation’ (UTSOPI) <https://www.utsopi.be/our-work/decriminalisation> accessed 28 February 2025
Bettiza S, ‘Belgium’s sex workers get maternity leave and pensions under world-first law’ (BBC, 1 December 2024) <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5ygn31ypdlo> accessed 26 February 2025
Kilbride E, ‘Belgium Adopts Historic Law Against Sexual Exploitation’ (Human Rights Watch, 2 December 2024) <https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/12/02/belgium-adopts-historic-law-against-sexual-exploitation> accessed 28 February 2025