The Belgian union of sex workers, UTSOPI, fights for independence – over their bodies, choices, and lives. Thanks to the union’s tireless advocacy, and that of allied organisations, Belgium decriminalised sex work in 2022. Two years later, it became the first country to introduce full employment contracts for sex workers. To mark International Sex Workers’ Rights Day, Mama Cash sat down with Daphné and Marianne from UTSOPI to talk about their achievements, ongoing challenges, and what’s next in the fight for sex workers’ rights.
Please introduce yourselves!
Daphné: I’m in charge of building community at UTSOPI and doing outreach in the North District. I do social work and communication, and I’m also a sex worker.
Marianne: I’m a sex worker for 20 years and an activist for sex workers rights. At UTSOPI, I work on projects that are at the intersection of building the sex worker community, advocacy on sex worker’s working conditions, and fighting stigma.
How did UTSOPI start? What brought people together?
Daphné: It all started in 2015, with a need for sex workers to meet to discuss experiences and our way of living. It’s often hard to tell our stories to family or friends because they don’t understand the realities of sex work. Sex workers met and stayed in touch to share experiences and their activism. Because they were activists…
…in an informal way in the beginning?
Daphné: It started in an informal way, just to chat and see each other. But at the end of 2015, UTSOPI organised itself as a collective; the first sex workers collective in Belgium. And it got formed because of the need to fight against local regulations. One of the mayors of a municipality that governs the Red Lights districts in Brussels wanted to expel window sex workers. So, the sex workers from that municipality got together and organised themselves and created UTSOPI.
What was your first big win?
Daphné: There were wins along the way, but we had no subsidies at the time and couldn’t do everything that we had on the table. When you have no money, it’s hard to get things moving. In 2017, UTSOPI registered itself as a social association. And with that, we were entitled to subsidies and got our first grant in 2018. We hired our first employee and could have bigger actions. We started having events in Ghent and Antwerpen. But then COVID happened, and that’s when we paved the way to our first big win.
How did the pandemic accelerate your work?
Daphné: In the first lockdown, everything had to close, including sex work. But because sex work wasn’t recognised as work, sex workers were not entitled to government help like other sectors. There was huge media coverage and at UTSOPI, we spoke up and explain that it’s unfair, because these people cannot work and there are no other ways for them to make money. And so, we started organising with other organisations like Espace P and Violett. We were raising money to distribute supplies to sex workers in need. And that opened the discussion for decriminalising sex work and making it legal. That was always a goal of UTSOPI.
Tell me more about your goal of decriminalising sex work.
Daphné: UTSOPI has always rooted for decriminalisation and the fight for rights for sex workers. The pandemic made it clear that the whole sex work situation was very hypocritical. Because there was this grey zone that said sex work isn’t work. But there were taxes for the workplaces, for example.
We could show that the situation isn’t normal. And it shouldn’t be like that, because there are many Red Lights districts in Belgium. So, sex work has always been visible yet not recognised. That has started discussions.
At some point, UTSOPI put pressure on the government to reopen sex work sector. They finally called us to discuss the protocol. So, it was an entryway into political discussions about sex work being recognised as work. Eventually it was put on the agenda, then removed, but because of pressure from media and us, it was put back on the table. And our first big win was the decriminalisation of sex work in 2022. We kept to our beliefs and put ethics above morals.
Our biggest allies in our fight were health care organisations and organisations that fight against human trafficking, human exploitation. And we couldn’t have done it without all the support and all the organisations that were with us.
How has life changed for sex workers in Belgium now that they can have legal employment contracts?
Marianne: First of all, the possibility of a legal employment contract was made possible through the decriminalisation of sex work, that was introduced via a reform of the criminal law concerning sexual offences. It’s through a broader global work about consent that the question of sex work appeared and the consent of sex workers was recognised. Because before that, it was explicitly said that consent of sex workers was presumed to not exist. Also, third parties aren’t criminalised anymore.
At the same time, the legislator wanted to be sure that the exploitation, the pimping, the human trafficking was still punished and criminalised. In the new criminal law concerning sexual offences, one of the definitions of pimping is “organising someone else’s sex work while not respecting the labour law”, so the reform already announced the writing of a labour law for sex workers. So there was the need to create a specific legal framework that allows sex work situations in places that are run by employers. To define the obligations of an employer to guarantee the well-being of sex workers. This is how the labour law for sex workers happened in 2024.
The law opens up many possibilities for sex workers. Because before that, the only way of having official income in sex work was to be self-employed, which is not a very protective status. With this new labour law, sex workers have a right to sick leave, maternity leave, unemployment benefits, and all the social protection that other workers can access.
Now that sex work is legal, are there new opportunities you’re excited about, or new challenges you’re taking on?
Marianne: This new legal framework is a big and major step to fight stigma. Because it says that society has to respect and recognise sex workers as workers of the country, as people who are as important as other people. So already symbolically, it’s a huge change.
And concretely, those laws give us tools to build the way we want to work, the way we want to be a community. New laws don’t make the whole situation suddenly change. What will make that it changes progressively is that, for example, there will be more sex workers who will go to court if exploitative situations are encountered with an employer or if they are discriminated in various kinds of situations. And we’ll see over the years how much and how the community manages to use those tools.
Now we have more and more sex workers who want to open their own businesses, who want to have cooperatives or develop their own escort agency. It’s great; it means that they feel safe and confident enough to see it not just as a dream like before, but as a possibility. And this changes everything.
But the situation is still very complex, and we still have lots of problems. And most of them are for undocumented sex workers, because the labour law is only accessible for sex workers who are staying legally in Belgium. So, this is one of the big fights that we are leading now. And we must be aware that this new way of considering sex work won’t become a hunt for black money made with sex work. The fact that it is possible to be self-employed or have a contract doesn’t mean that sex workers who can’t fall into one of those categories must be traced and persecuted.
How did Mama Cash contribute to your work?
Marianne: Mama Cash’s contribution was crucial for our capacity of building ourselves and for our advocacy. When we started, we had no money at all. Nobody supported us. Mama Cash was the first funding authority who trusted us and our mission to obtain rights for sex workers in Belgium. Thanks to Mama Cash, we could hire staff and benefit from expertise. We could build and develop the sex worker community. And when we were fighting and advocating for the decriminalisation of sex workers in Belgium and for access to the labour law, Mama Cash funded us. So, we can definitely say that Mama Cash is part of this victory.
What is the recipe to win?
Marianne: My God, it’s a deep question. I would say even if it’s difficult, stay connected to joy, to an activism that stays powerful and joyful and with lots of friendship between people. I think that I wouldn’t have managed to continue fighting if I didn’t have friends in the community, if I wouldn’t trust my colleagues. And if I wasn’t absolutely convinced that everything we do is completely ethical and linked to social justice, to the fight against racism and poverty. In sex work we find other communities that are the most discriminated against in society. So, keep joy, love, and an intersectional interest.
It must be hard to pick one of the moments you’re most proud of.
Marianne: I’m very proud to be there today, to be still alive and to keep fighting. Not to be disgusted by all the crazy and incredible work that is activism. Because even if you have a victory one day, the day after you have to continue fighting. We have decriminalisation and the labour law – enormous victories. But it’s nothing in this sea of discrimination and difficulties that we experience, not only as sex workers, but the many other intersectional issues that sex workers are linked to.
What keeps you going?
Marianne: I need to feel that I’m not alone, that’s the most important. We are here and we have our way of living. Keep doing it and the law will have to change. This is the spirit we need to have. We create the world, we have to stay connected to that, and they will get used to it.
Daphné: What keeps me going when it’s hard, and it is most of the time, is knowing that we are making a change. We have made changes, and we still have changes to make. We need to make sure that sex work isn’t seen as something out of this world because it’s real and it’s okay. What keeps me going is knowing that the fight is not over. With the far right growing everywhere, I fear that rights aren’t something that we can take for granted. With our privileges, we have to make sure that we speak up for the people who cannot speak up. We must keep going for them and for the love of the community. It fills me with so much joy and happiness to see what we can build with this community, to see the joy on their faces whenever there’s a huge success or whenever we have a festival. I know we have a purpose. I know we are there for sex workers as sex workers. And what keeps me going every day is the love of my co-workers.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.