ABSTRACT
The assumption that violence against sex workers nearly always comes from men who pay for sex has channelled deliberations over the reasons for this violence into theorising about the nature of the sex worker/client relationship, but the evidence presented thus far demonstrates that paying for sex is not commonly linked to violence, although not paying is. The LUML shows that 75 per cent of attacks on street workers were committed by those who did not pay; of those charged with non-fatal attacks on sex workers, 31 per cent were not clients or posing as clients and another 33 per cent posed as clients but then refused to pay and/or robbed their victims of all their money. Only 4 per cent were described as actually having paid.
