This guide discusses the challenges involved in ensuring that violence is addressed in HIV programmes and gives a detailed understanding of violence in relation to sex work and challenges some common assumptions. The guide also provides examples from real programmes that illustrate ways in which HIV and AIDS projects can help reduce the incidence of violence against sex workers and provide support to those who experience violence. This guide is primarily for organizations implementing HIV and AIDS projects with sex workers and for organizations providing funding and technical support to these projects. It aims to help organizations understand and assess the importance of taking violence into account and to help design and carry out activities to prevent and deal with violence against sex workers. It is hoped that the discussions and examples presented will help these organizations to know what questions to ask, what issues to look for and how to make projects more effective by responding better to the needs of sex workers.