“Sex work is work”, chant sex workers in France at each demonstration. In Belgium, the government understood the idea well. After having decriminalized prostitution, in 2022, our neighbors now want to offer prostitutes the possibility of signing an employment contract with “an approved employer” according to a bill validated, this Friday, in the Council of Ministers .
It is a question of “better protecting” this category of workers against the risks of abuse and exploitation, according to a press release co-signed by the Ministers of Labour, Health and Justice, all three defenders of the text. Not only will the fact of signing such a contract guarantee them social security coverage (health insurance, maternity leave, unemployment rights, retirement, etc.), and a precise framework on the duration of working time or remuneration.
The employer will have to show a white paw
But it will also commit the other signatory party, the employer, to a series of obligations, such as providing an emergency call button in “each room of the establishment where the work is carried out”, is He underlines. The aim is to be able to warn if necessary “a reference person”, whom the employer will have to make available to the worker “for the entire duration of the service”.
To be approved by the authorities, the employer must also present his criminal record and have “a registered office or operation in Belgium”, continues the press release. The employer must “respect the freedoms of those whose work it organizes” and guarantee them “a secure environment”, summarizes the Minister of Labor and the Economy, the French-speaking socialist, Pierre-Yves Dermagne. “Workers will have the right to refuse sexual partners or specific sexual acts, without this refusal being grounds for dismissal,” he adds.
Last year, associations had welcomed the decriminalization of prostitution, but said they were waiting for this new “framework” defining “a minimum of rules to be respected” so that the sector escapes pimping and insecurity at work.
Belgium claims to have been the first European country to decriminalize sex work, and the second in the world after New Zealand.
There are at least 7,000 sex workers in Belgium practicing in a “visible” way, according to the Utsopi collective. Other estimates suggest 20,000 or even 25,000 workers, women in nine cases out of ten.