The Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers (APNSW) is a regional network which supports member organisations across the Asia Pacific to take collective action for Sex Workers rights. With its regional Secretariat based in Bangkok, APNSW membership is open to all national SW networks, SW-led organizations, cooperatives, unions, and collectives across the region, as well as non-sex
worker-led community organisations that provide rights-based advocacy, health, and welfare services to sex workers.

APNSW seeks to establish the Asia Pacific as a region which recognises sex work as legitimate work and where SW communities enjoy full access to, and protection of, their human rights. APNSW is grounded in the belief that human rights movements yield the greatest and most sustainable change when built upon the principles of community leadership, inclusivity, and the practice of intersectionality. As a regional network, APNSW realises its commitment to these values through the facilitation of community empowerment and capacity building programming which aims to strengthen Sex Workers’ organising skills and center the leadership of SW
communities within diverse, multi-level human rights movements.

APNSW works to achieve this vision through a commitment to the following bold goals, concrete demands, and justice-based values:

• Promote and protect the human rights of SWs to live free from violence, abuse, stigma, and discrimination.
• Organize, mobilise, and empower SW communities to advocate for
  their rights.
• Build leadership and promote solidarity across SW communities to foster a strong, SW-led movement for SW rights.
• Build regional mechanisms for policy advocacy for SW rights.
• Implement regional programmes which promote knowledge exchange
  amongst SW and SW rights organisations.
• Advocate for legislative and policy reforms which protect SWs’ right live in dignity with self-determination and decent working conditions.

Sex worker (SW) communities in the four countries targeted by this project experience endemic levels of human rights violations due to social, political, and economic environments which foster anti-SW violence. Systemic and institutionalised violence against sex workers (VASW) not only violates SWs’ rights but inhibits the mobilisation of SW-led collective action and prevents public health initiatives from achieving robust penetration within SW communities.

APNSW aims to strengthen the capacity of SW rights movements to prevent and respond to all forms of violence targeting SW communities by mainstreaming the meaningful involvement and leadership of women and transgender SWs within national, regional, and global movements engaged in CEDAW advocacy.

Through Amplifying the Voices of Sex Workers APNSW develops and mobilises broad-based, multi-level movements for SW rights within national and international CEDAW advocacy spaces. APNSW collaborates with five APNSW member organisations working in  Bangladesh, Indonesia, Myanmar and Laos, providing technical assistance for the implementation of
community-led activities. Project activities seek to foster the conditions necessary for SWs to realise and assert their power within an environment of respect, equality, justice, inclusion, and
dignity.