The Sisonke movement in South Africa aims to galvanize sex workers to fight for equal rights and for improvements in their living and working conditions. This article, based on Jayne Arnott's presentation to a plenary session at the XV International AIDS Conference in Bangkok on 14 July 2004, outlines the legislation that governs the sex trade in South Africa; reviews related legal and policy developments since the end of apartheid in 1994; describes the present environment; and outlines the contribution that sex workers themselves are making to the fight for reform.