history, society

From Stigma to Social Security: Belgium’s Historic Shift on Sex Work

At the end of 2024, Belgium introduced a new law granting sex workers the same employment rights as other workers, including official contracts and social protection. This makes Belgium unique worldwide. The law reflects shifting views on sex work. Historian Elwin Hofman traces how perceptions have evolved over the centuries—from lustful sinner to victim, and now to recognized professional.

Before the new law came into effect in Belgium, sex work was only legal on a self-employed basis. Now, sex workers can also be employed, provided the employer complies with certain regulations. This gives sex workers access to social security, parental leave and pension rights. The law was developed in consultation with sex workers’ advocacy groups.

It’s a major step. The BBC reported on it, and there is nothing Belgians find more impressive than receiving attention from the foreign press. A “world-first law”, they called it. And that’s correct – nowhere else in the world has sex work been regulated in quite the same way. Although in recent years, other countries have also made efforts to bring it into a more legal framework. In the Netherlands, brothels have been permitted in certain areas and under specific conditions since 2000. But unlike in Belgium, there is no specific labour law for sex work. Most sex workers in the Netherlands operate as (semi-)self-employed individuals. They do not have access to sick leave or parental leave. Belgian law aims to change that, though it remains to be seen whether the new regulations will have the desired effect.

But why did it take so long? Why is this still a global first? Part of the answer lies in how sex work is perceived. Prostitutes are often seen as victims of human traffickers, pimps and brothel owners. “Prostitution is always violent at its core,” argued an opponent of the new law in the BBC article. In her view, sex workers should not be given a legal framework, but rather support to leave prostitution and find a “normal” job.

The image of sex workers as victims first emerged around 1800. Before that period, women who sold sex were often seen as harlots with an insatiable lust. Moreover, they were considered so cunning that they managed to make their bed partners pay them money. This aligned with a broader, misogynistic view of women as being driven by their desires. They had to be kept in check: in many cities, women who sold sex could face fines or prison sentences.

Around 1800, a completely different image of women began to spread through novels, plays, and moralising and scientific texts. Women were increasingly seen as naturally sensitive, vulnerable and chaste. Not women, but men were believed to have the strongest sexual desires. If women sold sex, it was believed to go against their very nature. They sacrificed their natural chastity, so the reasoning went, out of economic necessity. They were not perpetrators, but victims. They didn’t deserve punishment, but pity.

Sex workers themselves often played eagerly into that perception. Those arrested in cities like Brussels or Bruges at the end of the 18th century frequently claimed to have been misled as naïve young girls, hoping for a more lenient sentence. When courts investigated the cases further, it was often clear that they had known full well what they were getting into. However, they had not always fully grasped the risks of the profession.

This new perspective led to various initiatives in the 19th century aimed at helping women leave prostitution. In 1824, a private hospital was established in Antwerp where former prostitutes could go and learn a trade. A memorandum addressed to the Belgian Minister of the Interior in 1836, argued that “immorality” was not always the primary cause of prostitution. No, respectable young women had been deceived by malicious pimps or had no other way to earn a living. It was the government’s duty to provide workplaces where such women could carry out honourable work.

Throughout the 19th century, governments across Europe focused primarily on regulating the sex industry. These regulations were not designed to protect sex workers, but rather to prevent scandals and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Pimps and brothel owners may have had a bad reputation, but as long as they adhered to an ever-expanding set of rules regarding opening hours, alcohol consumption and, more importantly, medical examinations, they were allowed to continue their business.

At the end of the 19th century, the situation reached a breaking point. The so-called “abolitionist” movement, headed in England by Josephine Butler and also echoed in the Low Countries, advocated for the abolition of all regulations surrounding prostitution. Abolitionists argued that regulating prostitution legitimised the exploitation of women. It turned them into “white slaves” (little attention was paid to sex workers of colour). They hoped that by banning brothels and abolishing regulations, prostitution itself would eventually cease.

In the Netherlands, all regulations were abolished, and brothels were banned in 1911. In Belgium, ‘regulationism’ did not officially end until 1948. Prostitution itself was not criminalised – since prostitutes were seen as victims – but facilitating prostitution was. Renting out rooms to sex workers, running a brothel or even managing a sex worker’s bookkeeping was therefore, officially at least, illegal. However, abolitionism did not have the effect its proponents had hoped for. Exploitation did not decrease. On the contrary, human trafficking and sexual exploitation remained rampant.

Inspired by the sexual revolution, sex workers themselves began seeking an alternative starting in the 1970s. They challenged the narrative of victimhood. Initially, mainly in the US, Britain and France, but from the late 1980s and 1990s, also in the Low Countries. Not everyone who sold sex was a victim, new advocacy groups argued. For a significant number of people, sex work was a conscious choice, enabling them to earn more money or gain greater independence. They did not need pity – they needed rights.

That Belgium can boast a unique legal framework is largely thanks to these sex worker advocacy groups that fiercely made their voices heard, among other things, because of the inadequate resources during the Covid lockdowns. There is also hope that by allowing a legal alternative, the government will be better equipped to tackle exploitation. The fact that sex workers have been heard in this process offers optimism that the new law prioritises their well-being more than the 19th-century regulations ever did.

• prostitution
• sex
• sex work