Belgium has become the first country in the world to pass a law that would recognise rights for sex workers and offer them equal treatment and benefits as enjoyed by people from different professions in the country.

Sex workers will now be entitled to crucial benefits like employment contracts, health insurance, pensions, maternity leave and sick days.

Reacting to the implementation of the new law, Sophie, a  sex worker and a mother of five, told BBC: "I had to work while I was nine months pregnant."

She said: "I was having sex with clients one week before giving birth.”

Despite being suggested to take bed rest, she said she was forced to return to work immediately after the birth of her fifth child due to financial reasons.

“It’s an opportunity for us to exist as people,” Sophie said about the new law.

Sex work was decriminalised in Belgium in 2022.

The new law even caught the attention of human rights advocates who welcomed the move.

“This is radical, and it’s the best step we have seen anywhere in the world so far,” Erin Kilbride, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, told BBC.

Erin said she expects every country would move in the same direction.

Critics, however, said the law would not be able to prevent trafficking, exploitation and abuse, the hazards associated with the profession.

“It is dangerous because it normalises a profession that is always violent at its core,” Julia Crumière, a volunteer with Isala, an NGO that helps sex workers on the streets in Belgium, told BBC.