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“Belgian Government Will Intervene In Cases Where Prostitutes Refuse Sexual Acts Too Often.” That headline, at a website called The Publica, certainly caught my attention. A new law in Belgium, the website claims, will enable “pimps to punish” sex workers “if they refuse sex more than 10 times in a six-month period. The Belgian Parliament voted for the law on May 3, with 93 in favor, zero opposed, and 33 abstentions.”

Others have taken upthis story with similarly salacious and critical tones.

As you might suspect, the truth is much less disturbing than these reports suggest. In fact, the law in question is aimed at protecting sex worker rights and autonomy.

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Δ Decriminalization Takes Hold

First, some background: Belgium decriminalized sex work in 2022making it an outlier in the European Union. While some other E.U. countries have legalized prostitution, their systems are highly regulated, leaving it a crime to sell or pay for sex acts in all but certain narrow circumstances (such as working in a licensed brothel or having a professional sex work certificate). Other E.U. countries have decriminalized selling sex in some circumstances but still criminalize paying for it.

Belgium decriminalized not just selling sex but also paying for sex and working with sex workers. That last bit is important, as it allows sex workers to pay people for ancillary servicessuch as security, administrative work, and accountingwithout making those people criminals.

It’s “important to note that it has never been illegal in Belgium to offer or pay for sexual services. Belgium’s policy was to slowly make sex work disappear, by making it impossible to perform the job in a normal and safe way by criminalizing all third parties,” according to the Belgian Union of Sex Workers (UTSOPI). “Those third parties are landlords, owners of rooms, bankers, lawyers, drivers…” Even employers were criminalized, “making it impossible to work legally in a brothel.”

Decriminalized third parties might also include folks that have historically been referred to as “pimps” or “madams”words carrying a lot of loaded implications but essentially referring to anyone who helps a sex worker find customers or otherwise manage their business.

Doing any of this in a violent, abusive, or coercive way is still a crime, of course. As UTSOPI notes: “If an accountant charges abnormally high fees to the sex worker for the sake of him or her being a sex worker, or if a third party demands sexual services in exchange for the delivery of services, then they are liable to prosecution.”

A big part of what Belgium is doing now is trying to bring sex workers into “social protection” programs and employee benefitsthings like unemployment compensation, maternity leave, and Belgium’s version of Social Security.

The decriminalization law was a first step to making sex workers eligible for such things. The second step was the law the country passed at the beginning of Maythe one that The Publica makes sound like a horrifying, dystopian mess. In fact, the measure had the support of the Belgian sex workers union.

Needless to say, Reason is generally critical of expansive welfare-state benefitsand of detailed labor regulations that invite the government to insert itself into workplace regulations. So nothing that I’m about to say is meant to suggest that there are no legitimate critiques of this new law. The point is to make it clear what the new legislation does, and why; any criticisms should proceed from the real law, not from fantasies. The Right to Refuse

Under the decriminalized system, sex workers could be self-employed, and they could hire third parties to help them in various ways. They could also be freelance workers in an establishment run by someone else. But sex workers could not themselves be employees.

Under the new law, “sex workers will also be able to work under an employment contract, thus gaining access to social security: pension, unemployment, health insurance, family benefits, annual vacation, maternity leave,” according to UTSOPI. “At the same time, the law ensures that sex workers in the workplace are protected against job-related risks and conditions are imposed on employers.”

As part of this balance, the law imposes obligations on both businesses that employ sex workers and on sex workers who work for those businesses. One of the conditions on employees is that refusing sex acts more than 10 times in a six-month period allows an employer to request government mediation.

But the law also explicitly protects the right to refuse specific customers, sex acts, etc.

It stipulates that “every sex worker has the right to refuse a client,” that “every sex worker has the right to refuse a sexual act,” and that “every sex worker has the right to interrupt a sexual act at any time.” It also says that “any sex worker has the right to perform a sexual act in the manner they wish” and that “if there are dangers to the sex worker’s safety, the sex worker may refuse to sit behind a window or advertise.”

If a sex worker invokes any of the five rights listed above, “the sex worker is protected from dismissal or other adverse action by the employer,” notes UTSOPI. Boundaries Go Both Ways

In reality, this law is explicitly drafted to stop prostitution businesses from punishing workers for exercising agency and setting boundaries. But employers must have some redress if the refusals are frequent enough to cause problems. Since firing or disciplining employees for exercising refusal rights is generally forbidden, this is where the mediation clause comes in.

“If a sex worker exercises the right to refuse more than ten times in a six-month period, the sex worker or the employer may seek the intervention of a governmental mediation service,” according to UTSOPI. “That service will assess if there is anything wrong with the working conditions, if there is a problem in the employer-employee relationship. The service can also offer professional reorientation possibilities.”

As you can see, saying that the new law allows “pimps to punish” sex workers for refusing sex acts is misleading. For starters, we’re not talking individual “pimps” (a one-person sex work business cannot legally hire employees) but registered businesses that have contracted as a sex work employer and taken on all the responsibilities that entails.

One of the slogans of sex worker rights campaigners is sex work is workit’s a job, just like other jobs, and sex workers deserve the same dignitty and rights. But that has to go both ways. And employees of other jobs can’t repeatedly refuse to do what they were hired to do without encountering at least some sort of intervention.

In this case, the “punishment” is merely having to try and work out a mutually agreed-upon solution. And either an employer or employee can trigger this mediation. A sex worker whose repeated refusal to accept customers or sex acts stems from broader issues with what their employer is expecting can themselves request mediation to try to work this issue out.

Or they can quitwithout any sort of notice period required and without forfeiting their right to unemployment benefits.

Self-employed sex workers are obviously not subject to the mediation requirement here. Nor are those who work for someone else as non-employees (as independent contractors or freelancers or whatever you want to call it). But sex workers who are independent contractors are also not guaranteed job protection if they refuse.

Far from being some sort of crazy scheme that denigrates sex worker consent, the new labor law is designed to protect sex workers’ autonomy and protect them from violence, exploitation, and privacy invasions, too.

Some of the employr obligations under the new law include a requirement that each room where sex acts take place be equipped with an alarm button and that sex worker unions and support groups be allowed to access sex workplaces. And sex workers can work under hospitality contracts that don’t mention sex work.

Far from granting too much power to sex work employers, the new scheme seems, overall, to grant government too much say in the employer-employee relationship. The good news is that sex workers who want to work in such a system can, and sex workers who want to work outside such a system can. Under decriminalization (unlike legalization), staying out of the more managed system isn’t against the law. More Sex & Tech News

Artificial intelligence hits search results, chaos ensuing… Google’s turn toward AI-powered search results is starting to be felt by news outlets and is likely to have impacts that spread much wider. “The shift stands to shake the very foundations of the web,” warns The Washington Post in whatalasis not an overstatement.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signeda measure making the minimum age to work in a strip club 21 years old.

Read James Czerniawski on the new AI bills in the Senate: Today, @amyklobuchar is marking up several bills related to #AI and #Elections in Senate Rules. Scott Blackburn and I submitted written testimony to the committee explaining how the proposals are deeply flawed. A quick thread ????https://t.co/oz6WBRRUwl

— James Czerniawski (@JamesCz19) May 15, 2024

North Carolinians talk to lawmakers about porn.

It is not going to be difficult for teenagers to get around age verification laws. Today’s Image Decriminalization rally in Washington, D.C. | 2019 (ENB/Reason)

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Entertainment

Gillian Anderson warns UK homelessness ‘will only get worse’

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Gillian Anderson warns UK homelessness 'will only get worse'

Gillian Anderson has warned homelessness is a growing problem in the UK – one that will only get worse if we enter a recession.

The award-winning actress, who is playing a woman facing homelessness along with her husband in her latest film, The Salt Path, told Sky News: “It’s interesting because I feel like it’s even changed in the UK in the last little while.”

Born in Chicago, and now living in London, she explained: “I’m used to seeing it so much in Vancouver and California and other areas that I spent time. You don’t often see it as much in the UK.”

Her co-star in the film, White Lotus actor Jason Isaacs, chips in: “You do now.”

“It’s now becoming more and more prevalent since COVID,” said Anderson, “and the current financial situation in the country and around the world.

“It’s a topic that I think will be more and more in the forefront of people’s minds, particularly if we end up going into a recession.”

Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear
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Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs in The Salt Path. Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear

The film is based on Raynor Winn’s 2018 memoir, which depicts her and her husband’s 630-mile trek along the Cornish, Devon and Dorset coastline, walking from Minehead, Somerset to Land’s End.

Written from her notes on the journey, The Salt Path went on to sell over a million copies worldwide and spent nearly two years in The Sunday Times bestseller list. Winn’s since written two more memoirs.

Isaacs, who plays her husband Moth Winn in the movie, told Sky News that Winn told him she “hopes [the film] makes people look at homeless people when they walk by in a different light, give them a second look and maybe talk to them”.

With record levels of homelessness in the UK, with a recent Financial Times analysis showing one in every 200 households in the UK is experiencing homelessness, the cost of living crisis is worsening an already serious problem.

Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear
Image:
Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear

The film sees Ray and Winn let down by the system, first by the court which evicts them from their home, then by the council which tells them despite a terminal diagnosis they don’t qualify for emergency housing.

Following the loss of their family farm shortly after Moth’s shock terminal diagnosis with rare neurological condition Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD), the couple find solace in nature.

They set off with just a tent and two backpacks to walk the coastal path.

Isaacs says living in a transient way comes naturally to actors, admitting like his character, he too “lives out of a suitcase” and is “away on jobs often”.

Read more:
Is this every actor’s bucket list job?

Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear
Image:
Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear

Shot in 2023 across Somerset, Devon, Cornwall and Wales, Anderson says as a city-dweller, the locations had an impact on her.

Anderson reveals: “As I’ve gotten older, I have become more aware of nature than […] when I was younger, and certainly in filming this film and being outside and so much of nature being a third character, it did shift my thinking around it.”

Meanwhile, Isaacs says he discovered a “third character” leading the film just the day before our interview, when speaking to Winn on the phone.

Isaacs says the author told him: “I feel like there’s three characters in the film,” going on, “I thought she was going to say nature, but she said, ‘No, that path'”.

Isaacs elaborates: “Not just nature, but that path where the various biblical landscapes you get and the animals, they matter.

“The things that happen on that path were a huge part of their own personal story and hopefully the audience’s journey as well.”

The Salt Path comes to UK cinemas on Friday 30 May.

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Politics

PM could lift controversial benefit cap in budget – as Farage makes two big election promises

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PM could lift controversial benefit cap in budget - as Farage makes two big election promises

Sir Keir Starmer could decide to lift the two-child benefit cap in the autumn budget, amid further pressure from Nigel Farage to appeal to traditional Labour voters.

The Reform leader will use a speech this week to commit his party to scrapping the two-child cap, as well as reinstating winter fuel payments in full.

The prime minister – who took Westminster by surprise at PMQs by revealing his intention to row back on the winter fuel cut – has previously said he would like to lift the two-child cap if the government could afford it.

There are now mounting suggestions an easing of the controversial benefit restriction may be unveiled when the chancellor delivers the budget later this year.

According to The Observer, Sir Keir told cabinet ministers he wanted to axe the measure – and asked the Treasury to look for ways to fund the move.

It comes after the government delayed the release of its child poverty strategy, which is expected to recommend the divisive cap – introduced by former Tory chancellor George Osborne – is scrapped.

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Why did Labour delay their child poverty strategy?

Ministers have already said any changes to winter fuel payments, triggered by mounting political pressure, would only be made when the government’s next fiscal event rolls round.

The Financial Times reported it may be done by restoring the benefit to all pensioners, with the cash needed being clawed back from the wealthy through the tax system.

The payment was taken from more than 10 million pensioners this winter after it became means-tested, and its unpopularity was a big factor in Labour’s battering at recent elections.

Before Wednesday’s PMQs, the prime minister and chancellor had insisted there would be no U-turn.

More from Sky News:
PM’s winter fuel claim ‘not credible’
Starmer vs Reeves – the ‘rift’ in Downing Street

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Will winter fuel U-turn happen?

Many Labour MPs have called for the government to do more to help the poorest in society, amid mounting concern over the impact of wider benefit reforms.

Former prime minister Gordon Brown this week told Sky News the two-child cap was “pretty discriminatory” and could be scrapped by raising money through a tax on the gambling industry.

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Brown questioned over winter fuel U-turn

Mr Farage, who believes Reform UK can win the next election, will this week accuse Sir Keir of being “out of touch with working people”.

In a speech first reported by The Sunday Telegraph, he is expected to say: “It’s going to be these very same working people that will vote Reform at the next election and kick Labour out of government.”

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Politics

Sir Alan Bates attacks ‘kangaroo court’ Post Office scheme after ‘take it or leave it’ offer

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Sir Alan Bates attacks 'kangaroo court' Post Office scheme after 'take it or leave it' offer

Sir Alan Bates has accused the government of presiding over a “quasi kangaroo court” for Post Office compensation.

Writing in The Sunday Times, the campaigner, who led a years-long effort for justice for sub-postmasters, revealed he had been given a “take it or leave it” offer that was less than half of his original claim.

“The sub-postmaster compensation schemes have been turned into quasi-kangaroo courts in which the Department for Business and Trade sits in judgement of the claims and alters the goal posts as and when it chooses,” he said.

“Claims are, and have been, knocked back on the basis that legally you would not be able to make them, or that the parameters of the scheme do not extend to certain items.”

More than 900 sub-postmasters were prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 after faulty Horizon accounting software made it look as if money was missing from their accounts.

Many are still waiting for compensation despite the previous government saying those who had their convictions quashed were eligible for £600,000 payouts.

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‘It still gives me nightmares’

After the Post Office terminated his contract over a false shortfall in 2003, Sir Alan began seeking out other sub-postmasters and eventually took the Post Office to court.

More on Post Office Scandal

A group litigation order (GLO) scheme was set up to achieve redress for 555 claimants who took the Post Office to the High Court between 2017 and 2019.

Sir Alan, who was portrayed by actor Toby Jones in ITV drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, has called for an independent body to be created to deliver compensation.

He added that promises the compensation schemes would be “non-legalistic” had turned out to be “worthless”.

It is understood around 80% of postmasters in Sir Alan’s group have accepted a full and final redress, or been paid most of their offer.

Read more:
Post Office scandal explained

Who are the key figures in the scandal?

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‘Lives were destroyed’

A Department for Business and Trade spokesperson told Sky News: “We pay tribute to all the postmasters who’ve suffered from this scandal, including Sir Alan for his tireless campaign for justice, and we have quadrupled the total amount paid to postmasters since entering government.

“We recognise there will be an absence of evidence given the length of time which has passed, and we therefore aim to give the benefit of the doubt to postmasters as far as possible.

“Anyone unhappy with their offer can have their case reviewed by a panel of experts, which is independent of the government.”

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