Sex workers face physical, psychological, sexual, economic, and other forms of violence from a wide range of perpetrators, including police, clients, health care providers, government bodies, and others. Human Rights Watch research has repeatedly found that the criminalization of sex work – including partial criminalization – exacerbates, or is one of the underlying causes, of much of this violence. Human Rights Watch encourages all governments to work directly with sex workers to enact data-driven, rights-based policies, including the full decriminalization of consensual adult sex work.

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