Since May 1, 2026, western Switzerland has had a single number for people who have experienced physical, psychological, or sexual violence: 142. Six cantons – Fribourg, Vaud, Valais, Neuchâtel, Jura, and Geneva – operate it jointly. The intercantonial line is run by a Fribourg-based association: Solidarité femmes Fribourg / Frauenhaus Freiburg, which also manages the victim support counseling center for women in the canton.
That’s one side of the picture. The other: The only specialist center in the canton that treats sex work as work and not as a special case of something else is open two afternoons per week. Both are true at the same time. Anyone working in the adult entertainment industry in Fribourg canton moves between a well-developed emergency infrastructure for violence survivors and a very narrow, highly specialized service for everyday professional needs.
This article sorts out which office is responsible for what, when it’s accessible – and what falls through the gaps between services.
The Map: Almost Everything is in the City of Fribourg
When you plot Fribourg’s contact points on a city map, you quickly see why your place of residence matters more than your needs. The key addresses are within walking distance of each other:
- Boulevard de Pérolles 30 – Fri-Santé and the Grisélidis program
- Boulevard de Pérolles 57 – Empreinte (Le Tremplin Foundation), testing and sexual health
- Rue de Lausanne 91 – Solidarité femmes Fribourg / Frauenhaus Freiburg, victim support for women
- Rue Hans-Fries 1 – Victim support counseling center for children, men, and traffic accident victims
- Rue de la Grand-Fontaine 50 – Centre fribourgeois de santé sexuelle (CFSS)
- Place Notre-Dame 2 – Police de sûreté, where registration under the Prostitution Act takes place
Outside the cantonal capital it thins out, but not entirely. CFSS runs a branch at Rue de la Condémine 60 in Bulle, and since March 2, 2026 a third at Bahnhofplatz 2 in Düdingen/Guin, on the third floor of the Buffet de la Gare, in the offices of the Sense-Unterland Social Service. Consultations are held on Monday afternoons, in German and French – a significant difference in a bilingual canton where the German-speaking Sensebezirk population previously had to travel to Fribourg. Espacefemmes/frauenraum has also expanded its legal counseling to Bulle.
This does not apply to specialist consultation on sex work itself: it’s available at a single address.
Grisélidis: The Center That Knows the Profession
Grisélidis was founded on March 8, 2007 – International Women’s Day – by a group of Fribourg women because no specific structure for sex workers existed in the canton. The name refers to Grisélidis Réal, a pioneer of sex workers’ rights in Switzerland. Today Grisélidis is a program of the Fri-Santé association.
Social consultation hours: Wednesday and Friday, 1:30–4:30 p.m., Boulevard de Pérolles 30, without appointment and confidentially. Counseling is available in French, German, Spanish, English, and Romanian. Phone 026 321 49 45, [email protected].
The consultation hours cover exactly what no one else brings together: questions about police registration, residence permits, health insurance, finances, tax returns, and career reorientation. There’s also the sale of prevention materials at affordable prices. If you wonder why a health center helps with tax returns: because the administrative side of self-employment in Fribourg canton depends on multiple agencies simultaneously – registration with the police replaces neither registration with the compensation office nor tax obligations, and those who don’t know this often find out only when the bill arrives years later.
Grisélidis doesn’t just wait. Since 2008, the team has visited erotic salons, bars, and cabarets weekly, and a prevention bus parks one evening per week on Rue de la Grand-Fontaine in the city of Fribourg – where street sex work takes place.
To give a sense of scale: For 2018, the last year with publicly broken-down figures, the cantonal commission’s report shows 802 contacts at the consultation hours and 1,205 contacts at the bus (2017: 873 and 1,226 respectively). The canton hasn’t published more recent detailed figures in comparable form – those who need current information should ask directly at the specialist center or the commission.
When Violence is Involved: 142, Victim Support, Police
The 142 is free, confidential, and available around the clock. The division of labor: on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., cantonal victim support centers take the calls; in the evenings, on weekends, and on public holidays, the intercantonial line takes over. It’s aimed not only at those affected but explicitly also at relatives and witnesses.
An initial assessment after two months: around 550 calls outside business hours for all six cantons, 70 percent from women, in around 40 percent of cases involving domestic violence. The person responsible for the intercantonial line at Solidarité femmes Fribourg notes that calls during business hours are not included in this figure. The contrast to the neighboring Jura canton, where the number exists but a specialized center for sex work is missing, shows what 142 can and cannot do: it’s a point of access, not a substitute for specialist counseling.
The two Fribourg victim support counseling centers are divided by target group:
- Women: Solidarité femmes Fribourg / Frauenhaus Freiburg, Rue de Lausanne 91, 1700 Fribourg, 026 322 22 02, [email protected]
- Children, men, and traffic accident victims: Rue Hans-Fries 1, 1705 Fribourg, 026 305 15 80, [email protected]
Three points that are often unknown in practice: the services of the counseling centers are free. They do not require filing a criminal report – you can get counseling and then decide whether to file a report. And the counseling is linked to the criminal act, not to the question of how long someone has been in Switzerland; whether claims exist in an individual case is clarified by the counseling center itself. In an emergency, 117 (Police) and 144 (Emergency Medical Services) still apply.
That sex workers are, by experience, reluctant to file a report is not a Fribourg-specific problem but an industry-wide one. This is precisely why the detour through a counseling center or accompanying person makes sense: it separates the decision „I want support“ from the decision „I’m going to the police.“
The Office That Registers You is Not the Office That Advises You
Registration under Fribourg’s Prostitution Act (LProst, in force since 2011, with associated regulations) goes through the Police de sûreté at Place Notre-Dame 2 in Fribourg. Appointments are scheduled through the prostitution unit at 026 304 17 19; registrations take place on Monday afternoons and Thursday mornings.
This separation – registration with the police, counseling from an independent specialist center – is standard in several cantons and has a catch you should know about: the authority that records you is not the one that helps you, and conversely the specialist center cannot relieve you of the registration requirement. Where counseling is freely chosen, jurisdiction is not. How cantonal models differ is shown in the overview of the legal situation by canton.
Violations of the LProst can be sanctioned administratively, up to and including measures against salon operators. We deliberately do not mention specific fine ranges here: the figures circulating online sometimes come from other cantons with similarly titled laws. Binding is the Fribourg legal text – and in case of doubt, the information from the Cantonal Police or the Security and Justice Department.
The Ethics Charter: A Protection Rule Tied to Licensing
A Fribourg specialty is the Ethics Charter, which applies to persons in the prostitution sector and whose compliance is a prerequisite for salon licensing. In content, it stipulates, among other things, that only protected sexual intercourse is permitted and that condoms must be available free of charge or at cost price. The charter is available in five languages (French, German, English, Spanish, Romanian), as is the FAQ of the cantonal commission.
This commission – the advisory commission in the field of prostitution, anchored in Article 20 LProst – develops prevention and support measures, regularly informs itself about the situation, and coordinates the actors involved. It’s not a point of contact for individual cases, but it shapes how the canton discusses the topic. Its reports are the only somewhat regular public data source on the industry in the canton.
Additionally, the State Council approved a cantonal sexual health strategy on July 6, 2023, with 16 measures and five areas of action (perspectives through 2031, action plan 2023–2026). Sex workers are explicitly named as one of the vulnerable target groups – a document, not an offer, but a reference you can invoke.
Health Care Even Without Insurance
Fri-Santé, Boulevard de Pérolles 30, 1st floor, 026 341 03 30: Consultation hours Monday 9 a.m.–noon, Tuesday 1–5 p.m., Thursday 9 a.m.–noon, without appointment, free and discreet. The service is available to anyone without health insurance or in arrears on premiums – with or without residence status.
The workload is real: in 2024, Fri-Santé recorded 1,712 consultations, of which 949 were medical-nursing, 56 dental, and 763 socio-administrative, plus 162 newly admitted patients, mostly women. In its annual report, the association notes that the teams work „à flux tendus“ – at capacity – and securing the structure is one of the major challenges for the coming years. Those familiar with the funding gaps in neighboring Fribourg cantons recognize the pattern: the services exist, but they depend on very few staffing percentages.
Empreinte, Boulevard de Pérolles 57, 026 424 24 84, [email protected]: anonymous HIV and STI testing without appointment, plus support with PrEP and follow-up care. Opening hours: Wednesday 8:30–11:30 a.m. and 1:00–6:30 p.m., Thursday 8:30–11:30 a.m. and 1:00–4:00 p.m., Friday 8:00–11:30 a.m. and 1:00–3:00 p.m.
CFSS, 026 305 29 55, [email protected]: confidential and free conversations, Monday to Thursday 9 a.m.–noon and 2–5 p.m. at the three locations in Fribourg, Bulle, and Düdingen. Important to know: Testing for sexually transmitted infections at CFSS is primarily reserved for people under 25 years old. For sex workers, Grisélidis and Empreinte are therefore usually the more direct route.espacefemmes/frauenraum, Rue Saint-Pierre 10, 026 424 59 24: Reception Monday to Friday 9 a.m.–12 p.m. and Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday 2–5 p.m. Twice a month there is a 30-minute legal consultation on labor and family law provided by female lawyers – now also in Bulle.
Exploitation and Human Trafficking: Who Coordinates
Since January 1, 2008, the Canton of Fribourg has operated a cooperation mechanism against human trafficking, established by state council ordinance. Participants include the cantonal police, the Office of Population and Migration, the Social Services Office, the Labor Market Office, the public prosecutor’s office, and victim assistance counseling centers. The goal is better protection of victims and more effective prosecution – with defined procedures instead of chance encounters.
For those affected, this means in practice: Solidarité femmes Fribourg leads the topic of human trafficking, exploitation, and coercion as its own counseling area. Those who wish to remain anonymous or report a suspicion without being directly affected can contact the national reporting center ACT212: 0840 212 212, Monday to Friday 10 a.m.–6 p.m., the number is withheld; reports can also be made online.
This is also part of the picture: Federal law for foreigners contains provisions that apply specifically to victims of human trafficking. Whether and how they apply in individual cases is assessed by the responsible authorities – consulting an advisory center before speaking with the migration authority is therefore not a delay, but a protective measure.
What the Network Doesn’t Cover
Three gaps are obvious and should be factored into your own planning:
Timing. The specialized counseling for sex work takes place two afternoons a week, testing three days, the mobile unit one evening. The working hours of the industry largely fall outside these times. What runs around the clock is the 142 – a violence and victim assistance line, not an office for permits or tax questions.
Location and language. The services are concentrated in the city of Fribourg. The CFSS office in Düdingen since March 2026 and the legal consultation from espacefemmes in Bulle are the first visible exceptions – for the German-speaking part of the canton, however, specialized sex work counseling remains a trip to Fribourg (where, however, counseling is provided in German).
Structural. The commission itself has repeatedly noted that the growth of internet-mediated sex work is a challenge both administratively and for prevention and early detection. Outreach work reaches salons and the street. Those who work only online do not appear in any of these statistics – and must take the first step themselves.
Concrete: What You Can Do Today
- Save numbers before you need them: 117 (police), 144 (ambulance), 142 (victim assistance, 24/7), 026 321 49 45 (Grisélidis), 0840 212 212 (ACT212).
- Make initial contact while nothing is wrong. Putting a face to an office hour measurably lowers the threshold in an emergency.
- Call before you go. Opening hours of organizations change, especially when staffing is tight.
- In case of violence: consult first, then decide. Victim assistance is free and requires no report.
- Bring someone with you. You can bring someone to accompany you to the police, doctor, or authority – a trusted person or an advisory center.
All information in this text is based on publicly accessible sources from the Canton of Fribourg, the participating organizations, and regional media reporting, as of September 2026. Opening hours, addresses, and responsibilities may change; only information from the responsible cantonal authorities and the advisory centers themselves is binding. For legal questions about reporting requirements and salon permits, the Fribourg Cantonal Police or the Security and Justice Department of the Canton of Fribourg is the correct contact.