The EU member states want to introduce common rules for sex work, but no agreement has yet been reached

They want common rules in the field of erotic jobs, but there is no common denominator yet

The plenary session of the European Parliament adopted a resolution according to which the EU should develop uniform regulations regarding erotic jobs.

At the same time, significant differences of opinion arose about how the highly divisive political issue of prostitution is being handled.

Although the involvement of experts and sex workers during the discussion could have potentially helped, their opinions were not considered on this occasion.



The European Parliament adopted the report with 234 yes votes, 175 no votes, and 122 abstentions, which opened the way to EU-wide sex work regulation.

It became clear from the discussion of the report that although the majority supports the development of a common strategy, the views of the representatives differ strongly on what it should look like.

The newly adopted report has two main objectives when it comes to erotic jobs

On the one hand, the suppression of the sex trade, and on the other hand, the protection of sex workers, including the reduction of demand and providing social benefits for sexworkers.

Before focusing on the most important and controversial parts of the report, it is necessary to clarify some concepts related to adultworks.

What is a sex worker?

A sexworker is defined as a person who provides sexual services for money, regardless of whether they have physical contact with the client or they work as prostitutes online.

So webcam jobs and OnlyFans jobs can also fall under this categorisation.

Some sex workers are coerced or exploited by criminals, while others choose to do so voluntarily.

Some choose this erotic profession because of financial difficulties.

It is a controversial question whether someone would choose to have a sexjob of their own free will, without coercion (especially for European representatives).

According to most experts and interest protection organizations, such cases can exist and prostitution can be a legitimate profession.

At the same time, this statement concerning sexy jobs is disputed by feminists and Christian-conservative critics.

The sex trade:

The sex trade is an (informal) economic sector that is based around sex work. Within the European Union, we mostly talk about cross-border sexual exploitation of women.

Victims of sex trafficking include sex workers, and often in these cases it is exploitation.

Sex traffickers often limit the physical or financial independence of their victims (e.g. they may confiscate their passports, money, or physically restrain them).

Not all victims of sex trafficking end up as victims of human trafficking or other drastic crimes, but even those who voluntarily come into contact with sex traffickers can often be harmed or put in dangerous situations.

Legalization, decriminalization, and illegalization:

The legal treatment of prostitution is a complex issue.

In France, sex workers do not commit a crime, but using the services of a sex worker, and advertising or profiting from somebody's sexy job is a crime.

For this reason, the law punishes clients and sex dealers (pimps), but not prostitutes.

Despite this, the majority of prostitution remains illegal. There is an approach where prostitution and soliciting sex work are also legal under certain laws (for example, Austria and Hungary).

In other places, prostitution itself is a crime (such as Romania), and in others there is a legal but unregulated system (such as Poland) where prostitutes do not go to prison but cannot use the social welfare system, such as health care.

The position of the EU regarding the regulation of erotic jobs is not yet uniform

The majority of the representatives agreed during the debate that legal and regulatory differences between EU member states mostly strengthen the sex trade and the black market, where traders can easily take advantage of legal loopholes and general confusion.

Therefore, a common European regulation would make life more difficult for the most problematic actors.

However, it is not clear what the EU's new position should be regarding adult work.

The report that has just been adopted wants to eliminate the vulnerable and illegal status of prostitutes, but it also marks the suppression of demand as a priority.

The problem is simple: if we make soliciting the services of prostitutes or certain forms of prostitution punishable, it can reduce demand, but it can also push sex workers themselves out of the legal economy. This would mean that sex workers will have difficulty accessing the social care system and the justice system.

Conversely, if adult work is completely legal and treated like any other job, it normalizes it, and some say that this would increase demand.

The international news service Euronews also covered the topic:

Parliamentarians are divided: is sex work without exploitation possible?

There were some speakers who claimed that all sex work was equivalent to rape, a radical position, but the majority emphasized economic pressure as an issue that the new EU strategy should take into account.

In contrast, supporters of full legalization emphasized that the existence of prostitution is inevitable, and sex workers are best protected if they can turn to the authorities for help in the same way as any other worker.

This position about erotic jobs is mostly shared by human rights organizations and expert groups, as highlighted by the speakers.

However, the representatives of professional and sex workers' interest protection organizations were not heard in the current debate, so the debate about professional arguments became secondary.

Still, both sides essentially agreed that reducing women's poverty and social vulnerability could help address the problems not only of sex workers but of European women in general.

However, this idea is broader and less concrete than before, so it is not clear what specific proposals a possible future strategy in the field of erotic jobs might cover.

It will now be the responsibility of the European Commission to develop a strategy for sexwork.

This approach to sex jobs is widely supported by both the majority of the members of the European Parliament and the member states.

However, the exact way of bridging the significant differences of opinion has not yet been formulated in the report that has just been adopted.

There are many attempts at modifying legislation for adultworks, the situation in the Netherlands has been going on for years now:



Source: hvg.hu