Criminalisation, licensing, policing and stigma heighten sex workers’ exposure to family, domestic and sexual violence, and make us less likely to report it or get help when we do. Sex worker victim-survivors are routinely disbelieved, blamed, treated as less deserving, or found not to fit specialist family, domestic and sexual violence (FDSV) services’ client criteria, with compounding barriers for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, migrant and culturally and linguistically diverse, and disabled sex workers.

Sex worker organisations are often the first and only point of contact for sex workers experiencing violence. They attend scenes, arrange transport to hospital and emergency accommodation, provide peer support, brokerage and referrals, help with police reporting and court processes, run education on consent and domestic violence protections, and train workers in self-collection of forensic samples. Yet these organisations are funded almost entirely for STI and BBV prevention, and the few FDSV projects that exist are small, sporadic and vulnerable to funding changes. Sex work must be decriminalised in every state and territory, with anti-discrimination and anti-vilification protections. Governments should fund peer organisations at the state and territory level to deliver FDSV support, resource community legal centres to assist sex workers, fund national sex worker engagement in FDSV policy reform, and address the structural drivers of violence through intersectional, rights-based strategies.