discussion paper
In their work and lives, sex workers experience disproportionate levels of violence including police abuse, sexual assault, rape, harassment, extortion, and abuse from clients, agents (pimps), sex establishment owners, intimate partners, local residents, and public authorities. Violence against sex workers is a violation of their human rights, and increases sex workers’ vulnerability to HIV. Violence against sex workers must be understood beyond the individual incidents and in a wider context of gender and stigma. (extract from paper)