We are being hunted! Sex workers decry killing of colleagues

Kenyan sex workers during a press conference demanding for protection as the world marks the international day to end violence against sex workers in Nairobi on 17th December 2025/Photo: Handout

Sex workers have raised alarm over the continued harming and killing of their colleagues by clients, citing the lack of protection mechanisms as they carry out their day-to-day work across the country.

Speaking during a press conference to mark the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers in Nairobi on December 17, 2025, women affiliated with SWOP Ambassadors highlighted the dangers they face, noting that 27 sex workers were killed in 2025 alone.

Farida Wairimu of SWOP Ambassadors said the deaths were a result of the absence of protection mechanisms for sex workers, exposing them to heightened risk.

“These deaths happened because of the lack of adequate protection mechanisms for sex workers,” she said.

“Today, December 17, the world marks the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, and we are here to name a truth Kenya continues to avoid. Violence against sex workers persists because laws and systems criminalize survivors while shielding abusers.”

She added that in 2025 alone, SWOP Ambassadors documented 345 cases of violence against women in sex work in Nairobi, 27 of whom were murdered.

“These are not statistics. They are lives lost because silence felt safer than seeking help,” she said.

Veronica Were, a sex worker and paralegal, blamed the public for failing to defend sex workers and hold perpetrators accountable.

“We know that not protecting sex work leaves abusers free to harm without consequences. We also know what stops this. When survivors are accompanied by paralegals, when hospitals provide care without judgment, when lawyers are present and witnesses are protected, cases move,” she said.

“Files are not lost, arrests happen, convictions happen and violence is deterred. Survivors report not because they are brave, but because the system finally does its job. Today, we must also name the failure of public accountability,” she added.

She further criticised the Presidential Task Force on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide for failing to act on information provided by sex workers a year after it was submitted.

“The presidential task force was established to address these patterns of violence. Sex workers submitted testimonies, data and lived experiences. One year later, the task force report remains unpublished,” she said.

“This silence is a broken promise to women in Kenya, the public and the families of those killed. A national response to violence that excludes sex workers is neither inclusive nor fair. We demand the immediate release of the task force report and that our experiences be officially acknowledged, published and used to shape policy,” she concluded.