In Valais, two paths run through the same profession, and they are constantly confused. One begins at the counter of the Cantonal Police, where every person who practices sex work here must register before starting their activity. The other begins with a mobile number that is also reachable via WhatsApp, behind which no authority sits and which keeps no register. If you confuse the two paths, you either miss an obligation – or a help that would be available free of charge, confidentially, and in your own language.
This text sorts out the second side: the contact points. Not because the first would be unimportant, but because it is already described in detail elsewhere – anyone who wants to know who registers in Valais and who issues permits will find the process in detail there. Here we’re talking about the question that matters in an emergency: Who do you call if something goes wrong – and what happens to your information afterwards?
Why the distinction in Valais is particularly sharp
The Canton of Valais adopted its Law on Prostitution (GPr, SGS 932.1) on March 12, 2015; it has been in force together with the Ordinance on Prostitution (VPr, SGS 932.100) since early 2016. This makes Valais one of the cantons with its own explicit regulation – a difference from those cantons that regulate the topic exclusively through building, trade, and police law. How significant these differences are within Switzerland is clearly shown by the comparison of cantonal regulations.
The law has two arms. One is police-related: registration, inspection, prosecution. The Cantonal Police can inspect salons within their jurisdiction at any time, if necessary by force, and can verify the identity of the operating person as well as those working there. They run a specialized unit for this field – the Section for Minors and Morality, which marked its tenth anniversary in 2021.
The other arm is social. It is the reason why Valais has a designated specialist office for sex workers at all and not just a registration form. These two arms belong to the same law, but not to the same office – and that is the single most important sentence for anyone who works here.
The number that shows the gap
The Cantonal Police record around 450 registrations per year. Social workers encounter around 700 sex workers in the same period. Both figures are correct, and both are not current numbers: anyone who leaves the canton does not have to deregister, which is why no one can say precisely how many people are actually working in Valais at any given time. The difference between 450 and 700 is exactly the space where counseling takes place without a file being created.
BellaDonna: the cantonal contact point for sex workers
BellaDonna is the program for support, counseling, and protection of sex workers that the Canton of Valais provides free of charge – expressly in the language of the person seeking advice, as far as possible. It launched in 2018, initially based at AIDS prevention in the French-speaking part of the canton, with a social worker as coordinator.
Today BellaDonna operates under the umbrella of the SIPE Centers. This is not merely cosmetic: the AIDS Assistance Oberwallis decided at its general assembly in April 2025 to dissolve itself effective June 30, 2025, and transferred its projects and services to the SIPE Centers. So if you have an older brochure, an old business card, or a forum post from before 2025 in front of you, you may find an organization that no longer exists in that form. The service continues, just under a different name.
What BellaDonna concretely does
Three things, and they are interconnected:
Outreach work. About once a month, the team visits establishments, salons, studios, and contact bars together with a mediator, speaks with workers on site, provides information about sexual health, and distributes prevention materials. In other words: you don’t necessarily have to take the first step. Someone comes by, and they’re not in uniform.
Individual counseling. Information and support with professional or personal difficulties as well as administrative questions – residence permits, social insurance, paperwork that tends to get lost between shifts in daily life. If you’re wondering how AHV registration, tax obligations, and self-employment work together concretely in Valais, you get a first orientation here before going to the equalization office.
Support for exit or transition – if you want it. The program supports people who are considering a new life project, such as reorientation or further education. Explicitly as an offer, not a condition: the counseling does not presuppose that you want to stop.
How to reach BellaDonna
The program works with two regional contact points, both reachable by phone and WhatsApp:
- Central and Lower Valais (regions of Monthey, St-Maurice, Martigny, Sion, Sierre): +41 79 158 20 19, [email protected]
- Upper Valais (regions of Leuk, Turtmann, Visp, Brig): +41 79 616 93 05, [email protected]
In addition to phone availability, there are office hours without appointment. Check briefly beforehand about current times – office hours shift, and a WhatsApp message costs less than a wasted trip to Visp or Sion.
The five SIPE Centers – and what you get there without explanation
SIPE counseling centers have existed in Valais since 1976, distributed throughout the canton. They are the broader structure behind BellaDonna and cover sexuality, intimacy, partnership, pregnancy, and sexualized violence. For sex workers, they are primarily relevant as low-threshold health access where no one has to ask about your profession.
- Sion: Rue Sainte-Marguerite 1, 1950 Sion, 027 323 46 48 – sexual health counseling as walk-in clinic, Monday to Friday 1–6 p.m.
- Monthey: Rue du Pont 5, 024 471 00 13 – Monday to Friday 2–6 p.m.
- Martigny: Rue du Grand-Verger 14, 027 722 66 80
- Sierre: Rue Rainer Maria Rilke 4, 027 455 58 18
- Brig: Matzenweg 2, 027 923 93 13 – Monday to Friday 2–6 p.m.; plus a location in Visp at Terbinerstrasse 3
HIV and STI counseling is conducted by specially trained staff. The test is performed as a blood test via finger prick, with results available at the end of the consultation – so you don’t leave with an open question and a promise to call back. This combination of short waiting times and low threshold is precisely the deciding difference for people with irregular working hours and changing work locations.
If something was done to you: victim assistance under the Victim Assistance Act
Victim assistance in Valais is a separate system, regardless of whether a criminal complaint is filed. It advises victims of crimes and their relatives, helps enforce rights, and refers to specialists – lawyers, psychologists, doctors. Counseling is free and confidential.
The counseling office is located at Avenue de Pratifori 27 in 1950 Sion. For Central and Lower Valais it can be reached at 027 607 31 00, Monday to Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Appointments are also possible in Brig, Sion, and Collombey-Muraz.
Since May 1, 2026, there is also the national victim assistance number 142: free, around the clock, low-threshold and confidential, for people who have experienced physical, psychological, or sexualized violence in private or public spaces, and for their relatives. It does not replace emergency numbers – in case of acute danger, 117 for police and 144 for ambulance still apply. For everything after that, 142 is the number you can remember without having to look up an address. For sex workers, this is more relevant than it sounds: the most common reason for not calling a counseling office is not distrust, but not knowing which of the twelve possible offices is the right one.
Exploitation and human trafficking: the AVIT
The most significant change in the Valais assistance landscape in recent years is called AVIT – the Valais Association for the Support of Victims and Witnesses of Human Trafficking. It was created in 2023 on the initiative of the authorities so that the canton would have a specialized organization for identifying and supporting those affected.
The cantonal strategy began in 2024 with a two-year pilot phase, supported technically by the Vaud-based association Astrée, which brings about ten years of experience in this field. For the first year, a budget of CHF 260,000 was planned, with the organization employing 1.6 full-time positions. A first evaluation was scheduled for the first quarter of 2025.
Contact: Avenue des Mayennets 12, 1950 Sion, 027 565 05 53, [email protected], office hours Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday from 2:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
What the first assessment shows
After 18 months of operation, AVIT released an interim report in 2025: 28 identified and supported victims – more than in the entire period between 2013 and 2022. Of these, 13 were in 2024 and 15 in the first nine months of 2025. Overall, there were 20 women and 8 men; 64 percent of cases were related to sexual offenses, and the majority of those affected were citizens of African countries. About 50 people consulted the office or appeared on behalf of others, and nearly 250 professionals received training.
These numbers do not mean that exploitation in Valais has suddenly increased. They mean that it is being seen systematically for the first time. Where a specialized office exists and professionals are trained, more cases are identified – this is the known effect of such mechanisms, and it is the actual purpose of the exercise.
The distinction that matters
Exploitation is not the same as sex work, and human trafficking is not the same as lacking a permit. The line runs where someone else determines your papers, your income, your freedom of movement, or your working hours: withheld passports, accumulated „debts“ for travel and accommodation, a room price that never gets smaller, a phone that doesn’t belong to you, or being told you can’t go shopping alone. If any of this sounds familiar – for you or a colleague – AVIT is the office that can classify the case without automatically triggering criminal proceedings.
Domestic violence and the rest of the network
The canton operates a cantonal Valais platform against domestic violence, supported by the Cantonal Office for Equality and Family (KAGF). It coordinates the network, informs professionals, and refers to regional domestic violence groups. The network also includes counseling for people who use violence; in Upper Valais, Caritas Wallis provides violence counseling on behalf of the KAGF with individual sessions, occasional couple sessions, and group offerings.
Then there are the cross-cantonal classics that work in Valais just as they do elsewhere: La Main Tendue under 143, around the clock and also by email, for everything that hasn’t yet found a name. And for searching for the right office, the Réseau Entraide Valais offers a directory of Valais offerings.
What no counseling office can take over for you
The Valais contact points cover health, law, administration, and exit. What they structurally do not cover is safety during work itself – and that is not a Valais peculiarity but applies throughout Switzerland.
Three points that make the biggest difference in everyday life:
A person who knows where you are. A colleague, a friend, someone from the salon: address, time window, agreed return signal. Someone working alone in apartments bears a different risk than someone in a salon with the presence of others – that is the practical reason why very small businesses with two people are an issue in several cantons.Preliminary clarification instead of gut feeling in the doorway. Contact details that are verifiable, a brief preliminary communication, a documented option to decline. The effort is invested before the appointment, not during it.
Numbers that are already in your phone in an emergency. 117, 144, 142, plus the BellaDonna number for your region. In the moment you need them, nobody is searching a website anymore.
The blind spot: when you’re not registered
In February 2026, the «Nouvelliste» reported on illegal prostitution in the canton: According to court decisions evaluated, around a dozen women were convicted of illegal prostitution in one year – a phenomenon that is low according to police, but increasing. In the same period, a network operating across western Switzerland was dismantled in Martigny: a 26-year-old Colombian woman and her Portuguese partner recruited and directed compatriots without residence permits, an average of around eight simultaneously, through ads, telephone operators in Colombia, and rented apartments in Lausanne, Neuchâtel, Fribourg, and Montreux.
This leads to a sentence that is often left unsaid: a missing entry with the cantonal police is an administrative problem – but it doesn’t take away your right to be a victim. Victim assistance under the Victim Assistance Act is tied to the criminal act, not to a permit. AVIT is explicitly there for people being exploited, regardless of their status. And counseling at BellaDonna or in an SIPE center is not a report to authorities.
The reverse is equally true: these services cannot remedy a missing registration. They can explain to you what needs to be done and accompany you in doing so. Whether your form of work is even permitted at a specific location in Valais is not decided during counseling, but rather through the municipal building and zoning regulations – and these differ considerably from municipality to municipality, which is why there is no cantonal blanket answer for this. The decisive information always comes from the responsible municipality and the cantonal police.
The map in one paragraph
Whoever in Valais has a question about health, papers, or professional life calls BellaDonna. Whoever became a victim of a criminal act dials 142 or contacts victim assistance in Sion. Whoever suspects that someone is controlling another person goes to AVIT. Whoever experiences violence in their own home finds the regional structure through the cantonal platform against domestic violence. And whoever needs immediate help dials 117 or 144.
For a canton of this size, Valais has a remarkably well-networked structure – denser anyway than the canton’s reputation would suggest, and with its own specialized office for human trafficking, which didn’t exist in 2022. How fragile such structures remain is shown by looking across the cantonal border: in Neuchâtel, counseling depends on a specialized office with a tight budget, and even a single cut position noticeably affects accessibility. In Valais, exactly the opposite happened with the integration of Aidshilfe Oberwallis into the SIPE centers in 2025: not less services, but a different door. You just have to know which one.