Belgium has become the first country in the world to pass a law to give labour rights to sex workers. They will be entitled to health insurance, pensions, sick days and maternity leave. Prostitution involves millions of people worldwide but will this new law protect these people from abuse and exploitation? Katya Adler speaks to the BBC's gender and identity correspondent Sofia Bettiza. The Global Story brings you trusted insights from BBC journalists worldwide. We want your ideas, stories and experiences to help us understand and tell #TheGlobalStory. Email us at theglobalstory@bbc.com You can also message us or leave a voice note via WhatsApp on +44 330 123 9480. Producers: Alice Aylett Roberts and Mariana Hernández Carrillo Sound engineers: Gareth Jones and Mike Regaard Assistant editor: Sergi Forcada Freixas Senior news editor: Sara Wadeson
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Hello, I'm Katya Adler from the BBC World Service.
This is the Global story.
Belgium has become the first country in the world to offer employment contracts to sex workers.
They'll now be entitled to health insurance, pensions and maternity leave, like most other employees.
For me, it's just like any other job and we need to be protected.
From the bad employers worldwide.
There are thought to be tens of millions of people working in the sex industry, but it's largely unregulated, often illegal, exploitative and sometimes very dangerous work.
This new law is normalizing sex work and it is dangerous.
It has a potential for very catastrophic outcomes.
Most alarmingly, this validates exposure exploiters as authentic business people.
The new Belgian law is aimed at addressing some of the risks.