Sex Work Act (SAG)

Sex workers are often affected by legal regulations that are passed over their heads and without their consent. This draft law is a document written directly from the perspective of sex workers themselves. It summarizes their criticism of existing legal regulations and describes concrete demands and measures to improve their living and working conditions. Our goal with this draft is to intervene in the debate, raise awareness of the concerns of sex workers, and achieve long-term legal implementation of these demands.

This draft law aims to address precisely this issue: It refers to all forms of sex work, regardless of place of work, residence status, gender or origin, and aims to create regulation that secures rights, reduces discrimination and criminalisation and enables political participation.

To develop this alternative draft law, we conducted intensive discussions in six workshops between November 2024 and April 2025. Sex workers exchanged views, analyzed various legislative models from other countries (e.g., Belgium, New Zealand and Sweden), and ultimately developed their own proposal that reflects their vision for fairer and safer legislation. Of course, this draft law does not claim to be exhaustive, but it is a starting point for an in-depth discussion on the rights of sex workers, which will hopefully generate further ideas.

This draft law provides a comprehensive blueprint for legal equity for sex workers. It offers a clear, actionable path to sustainably improving the situation of sex workers and strengthening their rights.

Support sex workers and make their criticism and demands heard!

The document with the draft law can be downloaded here for free. Please use it for your work and distribute it further. Please name the authors and contributors (at the beginning of the document). The document may not be modified.

The document also exists in German.

2nd Reissue of the Sex Work Act (SAG)

SMART Berlin and the campaign ‘Our Rights. Our Work. Our Law’ are pleased to publish an updated version of the Sex Work Act (SAG) from November 2025. We would like to thank everyone for their numerous comments and the many discussions we have had with various stakeholders, such as sex workers, authorities and advice centres. Of course, the recommendations and insights from the evaluation report by the Kriminologisches Forschungsinstitut Niedersachsen have also been taken into account in this new edition.

The new version includes more detailed paragraphs on:

• Sexual assistance as a trained profession (Section 4 (3))
• Parental leave, parental allowance, pregnancy (Section 10)
• Sick pay and insurance cover (Section 11)
• Protection and support for minors and adolescents (Sections 22 and 23)
• Simplification of the registration process for small businesses (Sections 27 (2), 28 (9), 36 (2 e))
• Pricing in businesses (Section 37 (2) and (5))
• Prohibition of so-called ‘fake free’ assignments (Section 57)
• Advice centres as postal addresses for (unhoused) sex workers (Section 58)

… and more.

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