The Constitutional Court of Portugal ruled in early May that it was unconstitutional to criminalise some third parties who are involved in sex work. Portugal’s current law bans any form of organised sex work, including running a brothel. It is also illegal to profit from, promote, encourage or facilitate ‘prostitution’, which affects the ability of sex workers to work together and work safely.
The verdict came from a case that started in 2014, when a bar in Valpaços was investigated by the National Republican Guard. They arrested six women who allegedly did sex work on the premises and the bar owner for “encouraging six women into prostitution”. The court did not find any evidence that the women were coerced into sex work by third parties, but that they chose to do sex work themselves “according to their own will”.