As a single mother, the burden of raising your children can sometimes be too heavy to bear. This means one will do whatever it takes to lift this burden. Mercy chooses sex work as her way of life. The community has it in mind that sex work is cheap and easy money, but the experience […]
Bar Hostess Empowerment and Support Programme (BHESP) joins sex workers globally in recognizing June 2nd: International Sex Workers Day. On this day, we stand in solidarity with sex workers around the world and affirm our commitment to promoting and protecting sex workers’ rights. We acknowledge the diversity and intersectionality of Sex work with labor rights, […]
CASE DESCRIPTION21-year-old Fiona Mambo was raped by an Uber driver in a bush along Kiambu Road on Sunday 21/5/2023 at around 2:30 am. The client had misrepresented himself as a customer (xxx Nairobi hot.com) but ended up raping her and robbing her of her dignity and money. She was referred to the BHESP facility at […]
A Thika court has remanded an attempted rape suspect after failing to raise a Ksh. 300,000 bond. The Court heard that on 17th February 2016 at Thika town, John Mwangi Irungu attempted to rape and brutally assaulted Esther*, who is a sex worker. Irungu appeared before Thika Senior Principal Magistrate Abdulqadir Lorot and pleaded not […]
Since its inception back in 1998, Bar Hostess Empowerment & Support Programme (BHESP) biggest projects has been on HIV prevention among female sex workers in Kenya. HIV prevention takes over 60% of BHESP’s annual budget. Despite the massive investment channeled towards HIV prevention, BHESP realized that it cannot respond to challenges facing sex workers by […]
What do you do? I am a sex worker and I pimp girls. A guy comes to me, he wants a girl, I have approximately 22 girls, I call one of them and I negotiate the payment. Out of the negotiations I get a commission but it will only depend on how much the girl […]
Since its inception back in 1998, Bar Hostess Empowerment & Support Programme (BHESP) biggest projects has been on HIV prevention among female sex workers in Kenya. HIV prevention takes over 60% of BHESP’s annual budget. Despite the massive investment channeled towards HIV prevention, BHESP realized that it cannot respond to challenges facing sex workers by […]
Karnataka Health Promotion Trust (KHPT) staff on Tuesday visited the Bar Hostess Empowerment and Support Programme (BHESP) wellness center, located along Jogoo Road in Nairobi’s Eastlands area. KHPT staff met with BHESP’s Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist Simon Mwangi, Nurse Marcy Wafula and paralegal Mary Mugure and discussed BHESP interventions in HIV prevention. KHPT commended BHESP […]
What do you do? I am a sex worker and I pimp girls. A guy comes to me, he wants a girl, I have approximately 22 girls, I call one of them and I negotiate the payment. Out of the negotiations I get a commission but it will only depend on how much the girl […]
“PrEP is Bonga point for HIV protection,” says Pendo, a sex worker, after I asked her understanding about Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis {PrEP}. Pendo, who started sex work in 2000, is among dozens of Nairobi female sex workers who have enrolled for PrEP. PrEP is a way for people who don’t have HIV but are at very […]