Prostitution Laws In Belgium

Information about prostitution laws in Belgium

"As the 9 a.m. shift began at Villa Tinto, which calls itself Europe's most high-tech brothel, prostitute Andrea Maes put on her leather boots, pressed her finger on a biometric scanner and started posing for potential clients in her neon-lit display window. After matching her fingerprint with the one in its database, the brothel's system clocked her in and flashed her ID number -- A9018 -- to a control room manned by a fellow prostitute. It also switched on the lights in her designer-furnished room -- more boutique hotel than bordello.... Villa Tinto, House of Pleasure, is a pioneering example of a widening European drive to legalize prostitution, while combating the crime and violence it fosters -- including the explosion in human trafficking in recent years. The brothel opened in January, with the help of the Antwerp city council, the police and the prostitutes themselves as part of a 'tolerance zone,' begun in 2001. The Belgian government views the three-block area as a test case as it considers national legalization -- a move to wrest prostitution from the control of organized criminals and bring in some lost tax revenue." Dan Bilefsky, "Belgian Experiment: Make Prostitution Legal To Fight Its Ills," Wall Street Journal, May 26, 2005

The population of Belgium is 10414336