Hands Off Programme

Image credit: Madelene Cronje (2021)

Hands Off is a programme that works to reduce violence against sex workers at community, national and regional level. Based on sex workers’ own priorities and needs activities implemented under the programme include rights literacy training and capacity building of sex worker movements, strengthening emergency response systems and roll out of national, regional and global lobby for law and policy reform. The main objectives of the programme include to empower and support sex workers at individual and community level, to ensure that sex workers have access to and use inclusive health services, emergency response, psychosocial services and legal services. Working with both government and non-government organisations, law enforcement and religious leaders Hands Off aims to strengthen allies to respond to violence against sex workers and to develop regional capacity and knowledge to promote sex workers rights.

Hands Off I

The Hands Off programme, implemented between 2014 and 2019, aimed to reduce the high levels of violence suffered by sex workers in Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Recognizing that violence is a structural determinant influencing the HIV epidemic among sex workers, partners of the Hands Off programme implemented activities to reduce violence such as stigma and discrimination against sex workers.

HandsOff II

The success of phase one has resulted in the implementation of ‘Hands Off Phase II’ (2019 – 2025), which will further build on the Hands Off model and intensify interventions that are proven to lead towards a reduction of violence, as well as pilot new and innovative strategies. The objective of the programme is that Hands Off will contribute to the reduction of violence through four long-term outcomes:

1) an empowered and resilient sex worker movement that demands its rights
2) increased access to and use of inclusive services for sex workers
3) a more supportive and enabling environment for sex work
4) sex workers protected and served by law enforcement.

Hands Off II, focuses on violence and sex work in the southern African region. The Hands Off II programme addresses the issue of violence against sex workers, which is increasingly being recognised as an important risk factor contributing to the spread of HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) worldwide. The programme is operating in South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. The main goal of the programme is to reduce violence against sex workers at community, national and regional level. In the Hands Off programme the definition of violence used is: any form of abuse, coercion, stigma against a sex worker by a person, group, institution, or government which leads to physical, mental, political, social, cultural or economic harm. Hands Off targets sex workers of all genders, meaning those who receive money or goods in exchange for sexual services, and who consciously define those activities as income generating even if they do not consider sex work as their occupation.

You can learn more about the Hands Off project on the Aidsfonds website.