Background In Ukraine where the main road of HIV transmission in Ukraine is sexual, female sex workers are considered to have increased risk of HIV and STI infections. Moreover, FSWs suffer from different kinds of violence such as: economic, physical and psychological. The goal of our research was to define if personal experience of violence is associated with risk of HIV/STI infections.

Methods Secondary data analysis was performed on the dataset of bio-behavioural survey with 5023 respondents (FSWs) conducted in 2011 by the ICF “HIV/AIDS Alliance in Ukraine”. RDS and TLS sampling methodology were applied, only females were recruited. The study was approved by Ethical Review Board of Ukrainian Sociological Association and Institute of epidemiology and infectious diseases named after L. V. Gromashevskyi.

To reveal relationships between HIV/STI rapid tests results and personal experience of violence of FSWs binary logistic regression analysis was provided in SPSS 15.0.

Results About 55% of respondents were aged 20–30 years old, 52% - completed secondary, vocational school and obtained not full high education, 64% - were unmarried and did not live together with sexual partner. Personal experienced of violence were positively associated with HIV (OR = 1.8 (1.5–2.1), HCV (OR = 1.7 (1.5–2.0) and syphilis (OR = 1.5 (1.2–1.9). Whenever regular partner was source of violence, FSWs had higher chances to be HIV (OR = 1.8 (1.3–2.6) and HCV (OR = 1.8 (1.3–2.4) positive. Moreover, those who experienced violence from police were more likely to suffer from HIV (OR = 1.4 (1.0–1.8).

Conclusions FSWs, with personal experience of violence, have increased risk of HIV/STI infections. Regular partner as sources of violence is important for HIV and HCV infections, as well.