 Chapter 2 – Addressing Violence Against Sex Workers In this video, we will talk about the different kinds of violence that sex workers may experience and discuss various ways of addressing the needs of our community in a fight against violence. Sex workers face high levels of stigma, discrimination and other human rights violations which may lead to violence. The violence sex workers face can be physical, sexual, financial and psychological. It is also important to understand that violence can occur in the workplace, at home and in public spaces, and can come from intimate partners and family, strangers, people who pose as clients, organized groups such as religious extremists, rescue groups and a state in the form of police, military, prison guards and border guards. Sex worker-led organizations from different countries have developed a variety of strategies for addressing the violence against sex workers. These strategies include organizing training for paralegals who will help sex workers in cases of violence and assist them in the legal process, organizing online and offline campaigns to create awareness and communicate their demands, and providing assistance in accessing shadow reporting mechanisms, round tables with stakeholders and decision makers and country coordination mechanisms. All these strategies are developed in line with the needs of sex workers and considering the particularities of national contacts, and at the heart of all these strategies lies community empowerment. When we build collective solidarity, we can mobilize and advocate for change, and we can challenge groups, institutions and systems that deny us our rights and perpetuate violence and other forms of abuse. Additionally, our partners and allies can be helpful in addressing the needs of sex workers who face violence and need to build up their programs. They can gather information about local patterns of violence against sex workers, use participatory methods to involve sex workers in identifying and finding solutions to our problems, understand and address the links between violence against sex workers and HIV, design holistic programs that include health and legal services and our community-based, support us in our actions addressing the violence. Becoming the problem of violence against sex workers is an urgent matter and must be made a priority. Sex workers' demands need to be heard and taken seriously, and necessary legal reforms should be made. We must promote the complete protection of sex workers' human rights, reject interventions based on the notion of rescue and rehabilitation, promote gender equality, and respect the right of sex workers to make informed choices about our lives.