Born deaf, Helga Stevens first attended Koninklijk Instituut voor Doven en Spraakgestoorden, a special school for deaf students in Hasselt, before later switching to a mainstream school in Sint-Truiden. While spending a year in St. Louis, Missouri on a Rotary Scholarship 1987, she visited Gallaudet University and met a deaf attorney who inspired her to continue her studies in law. Back in Belgium, she studied law at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and became the first deaf lawyer in Belgium.