Aid workers in Nepal left jobless by USAID cuts turn to sex work to survive

HETAUDA, Nepal -- She paces the side of the darkened highway in central Nepal, just enough light from the trucks roaring past to illuminate her painted face to the men rolling in on rickshaws and motorbikes. She knows that every stranger who pays for her body could end her life. But she also knows their money is the only thing preventing her death.This spot, littered in condom wrappers and fringed by jungle, is familiar to her. Rubi Lama once came here not as a sex worker, but as an aid worker who helped sex workers.For nine years, Lama — who is transgender — had devoted her life to conducting HIV outreach in Nepal’s marginalized communities, including the LGBTQ+ sex workers who wait by this highway each night. But after the United States slashed its foreign aid funding last year, Lama and more than 280,000 aid workers worldwide found themselves out of a job.Much has been written about the devastating impacts the U.S. foreign aid cuts have had on the millions of people the funding once helped. Far less is known about the impacts on the helpers themselves.In impoverished Nepal, where a conservative culture leaves openly transgender people with few legal job options, the impact on ai...