This strategic document is expected to provide a framework to all service providers to create an environment that will enable and empower sex workers to reduce their own risk of HIV/STIs acquisition and/or transmission, to seek and get appropriate early diagnosis and treatment of HIV/STIs and to address structural issues related to HIV and sex work.

Further, this strategy will create a benchmark against which the services provided to sex workers will be monitored and evaluated to inform continuous improvement in our quest to improve access, uptake and effective utilisation of HIV prevention activities.

The development of the South African National Sex Worker HIV Prevention and Treatment Programme (NSWP) is a result of unified energies and efforts from the National Sex Work Technical Working Group, which consists of sex workers, human rights activists, public health specialists and donor agencies who dedicated their time to ensure that the strategy was completed.

This strategy marks a new chapter in South Africa’s efforts to respond to the HIV/AIDS challenge.

South African National AIDS Council. National Strategic Plan for HIV Prevention, Care and Treatment for Sex Workers. (2013). Pretoria, South Africa.