PHOTO ESSAY: By a dark, dangerous highway in Nepal, aid workers fired by USAID cuts turn to sex work

HETAUDA, Nepal (AP) — For years, aid workers in central Nepal visited the shadowy spot alongside a darkened highway where transgender sex workers gather each night, offering them free HIV tests and counseling. Today, those aid workers still visit this spot — but this time, as sex workers themselves.

These former aid workers are among 280,000 worldwide who lost their jobs after the United States slashed its foreign aid funding last year. Most of those workers live outside the U.S., in conflict zones or poor areas where other job opportunities are scarce.

In impoverished Nepal, where a conservative culture leaves openly transgender people with few legal job options, the impact on aid workers’ lives was particularly crushing. Starving and scared, around 100 LGBTQ+ aid workers left jobless by the funding cuts have turned to sex work to survive, walking the streets alongside the very people they once fought so hard to help.

The public health implications are vast. With the U.S. funding cuts also eliminating access to HIV prevention medication in Nepal, health experts fear a spike in HIV prevalence among the surging ranks of sex workers, as well as members of the LGBTQ+ community.

In interviews with 15 former aid workers in Nepal, The Associated Press found nearly all had faced violence since turning to sex work, including gang rape. Most of the workers spent months trying to find other jobs, frequently being rejected the moment the employers realized they were transgender. Many have been forced to have unprotected sex with clients.

Police raids are common, but that generally makes the workers feel even more vulnerable, as many say they’ve been harassed and beaten by police officers.

On a recent Friday night, Princy Tamang — who turned in desperation to sex work after losing her job as an HIV outreach counselor for the aid group Friends Hetauda — twirls in the shadows by the highway, trying to entice a client. She eventually lands one, hopping on the back of his motorbike and zooming off into the dark. Fifteen minutes later, she’s back, and waiting for the next.

Tamang feels her potential slipping away. Back at home, her stacks of learning certificates lie unused. She yearns for her old job, where she was respected and treated as an equal. The fall from that to this has been dizzying.

“I felt like I was on a high,” she says. “And then I crashed.”

Nearby, her former colleague, Rubi Lama, paces in the dark. Lama spent nine years working at Friends Hetauda, where she searched for, counseled and tested those at high risk of HIV, including sex workers.

After the U.S. cut funding to the group last year, Lama lost her job. In the months that followed, she applied for local government positions she was initially told she had, only to be rejected once she showed up in person. She started skipping meals and could no longer afford medicine or rent.

Lama realized it was sex work or starve. She knew where to go: the dark spot by the highway where she’d once tested sex workers and their clients for HIV.

She now lives in fear that she will contract HIV herself, and that her clients will kill her.

“All of my sex worker friends, including myself, who are involved in this profession are victims of violence,” Lama says.

For Bharati Thapa, a former Friends Hetauda field supervisor and peer educator, the violence started the very first night she stood by the highway. Two Indian tourists picked her up and took her to a guest house, where another eight men were waiting, all of them drunk. She was physically assaulted and raped before fleeing.

She sits one recent evening in the darkened office of Friends Hetauda. She wishes the funding that was cut would return, so she could once again do work that mattered, and that was safe.

“My life is at risk now,” she says softly. “I fear that I may contract HIV and sexually transmitted infections. I fear being beaten up and harassed by customers. I fear the police taking me away at night. How can I not be afraid? There is risk from all sides.”

This is a documentary photo story curated by AP photo editors. It was funded by a grant from the Pulitzer Center. The Associated Press is responsible for all content.

A person enters a hotel where many sex workers meet clients in Kathmandu, Nepal, Friday, May 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

Police are seen at a meeting spot for transgender sex workers in Hetauda, Nepal, Friday, May 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

Colorful buildings sit along a main road in Hetauda, Nepal, Thursday, May 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

Dusk sets over a restaurant where transgender sex workers meet clients along a busy highway in Hetauda, Nepal, Wednesday, May 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

An empty condom dispenser hangs outside an office in Kathmandu, Nepal, Tuesday, May 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

Barsha Magar, a former aid worker who turned to sex work to survive after losing her job amid the U.S. foreign aid cuts, poses for a photo, Sunday, May 17, 2026, in Hetauda, Nepal. Magar spent 16 years as an HIV outreach worker and peer educator for the NGO Friends Hetauda before turning in desperation to sex work, where she has been raped at gunpoint. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

Rubi Lama, who is transgender and a former aid worker who turned to sex work to survive after losing her job amid the U.S. foreign aid cuts, poses for a photo after her transformation as she heads out to work on the streets, Friday, May 15, 2026, in Hetauda, Nepal. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

Rubi Lama, who is transgender and a former aid worker who turned to sex work to survive after losing her job amid the U.S. foreign aid cuts, poses for a photo before her transformation as she heads out to work on the streets, Friday, May 15, 2026, in Hetauda, Nepal. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

A man walks down an alley in a bustling neighborhood of Kathmandu, Nepal, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

Sujata Chaudhary, who is transgender and a former aid worker who turned to sex work to survive after losing her job amid the U.S. foreign aid cuts, poses for a photo in Kathmandu, Nepal, Friday, May 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

A dancer performs in a club in Hetauda, Nepal, Saturday, May 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

Men enter a club in Kathmandu, Nepal, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

A transgender sex worker approaches a client in Hetauda, Nepal, Friday, May 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

A transgender sex worker stands next to a busy highway waiting for clients to approach her in Hetauda, Nepal, Saturday, May 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

Rubi Lama, who is transgender and a former aid worker who turned to sex work to survive after losing her job amid the U.S. foreign aid cuts, applies makeup before going to work in the streets in Hetauda, Nepal, Friday, May 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

Bharati Thapa, a former HIV outreach worker who turned to sex work to survive after losing her job amid the U.S. foreign aid cuts, poses for a portrait outside the office of her former NGO, Wednesday, May 20, 2026, in Hetauda, Nepal. Thapa, who suffered a gang rape on her first night as a sex worker, says she fears her new line of work will kill her. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

Princy Tamang, a former HIV outreach worker who turned to sex work to survive after losing her job amid the U.S. foreign aid cuts, poses for a portrait, Friday, May 15, 2026, in Hetauda, Nepal. Tamang, who has endured beatings from clients and has been forced to have sex without condoms since transitioning to sex work, fears she will contract HIV. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

HETAUDA, Nepal (AP) — Associated Press reporter Kristen Gelineau, who has been covering the impact of U.S. foreign aid cuts, reported and wrote the story of how the cuts have prompted scores of unemployed aid workers in Nepal to turn to sex work to survive.

The workers are among 280,000 worldwide whose jobs were eliminated along with the U.S. Agency for International Development last year, after U.S. President Donald Trump called the agency a waste of money and dissolved it. In a statement to The Associated Press, the U.S. State Department said the Trump administration had reinvigorated its assistance programs to focus on efficiency, effectiveness and partnership. The department also said the U.S. spends more on health and humanitarian assistance than any other country.

While much has been written about the devastating impacts of USAID’s dissolution on the millions of people the agency once helped, far less is known about the impacts on the helpers themselves.

This is an interview with Gelineau by Mary Rajkumar, who edited the story.

There has been a significant amount of coverage of the devastating impacts of the U.S. foreign aid cuts, from children starving to death to shortages of lifesaving medicine. But there hasn’t been much written about the 280,000 people who lost their jobs as a result of USAID’s dissolution. The few stories that have been done have largely focused on American USAID staffers, even though they make up less than 10% of those left jobless by the cuts. Most of the workers who lost their jobs live overseas, often in conflict zones or impoverished countries where other job options are scarce to nonexistent. I wanted to know what had happened to those people, who are particularly vulnerable and face very different challenges to Americans.

While looking into the impacts of the USAID cuts across Asia, an HIV researcher in Nepal mentioned in passing something that I found startling: The leader of an NGO focused on HIV prevention had told him that many of their former workers who had once helped marginalized groups like sex workers had been forced to turn to sex work themselves to survive.

As I looked into it further, I realized this was not an isolated incident, and that LGBTQ+ aid workers across the country were in this situation. Health officials also began telling me they were concerned this would lead to an increase in HIV prevalence.

I thought it was a strong example of how the funding cuts have proven destructive not just for the people the funding once helped, but for the helpers themselves.

It took months to find and earn the trust of these workers, who are highly traumatized. This required working through layers of contacts within Nepal’s LGBTQ+ community, sharing examples of my previous work to demonstrate that I have a history of reporting ethically on marginalized communities, and then initially making contact over text messages before working our way up to in-person interviews.

In Nepal, I was accompanied by my visual colleague Bram Janssen and our talented translator, Tulsi Rauniyar. The three of us spent time reporting in Kathmandu and a small city called Hetauda, where there were a large number of aid workers-turned-sex workers who were open to talking. As most of these workers are the victims of sexual violence, I wanted to ensure I obtained informed consent. So every interview began with discussions about whether they were comfortable going public, as well as reassurances that they could take breaks, stop the interview at any time, or decline to answer any questions that would be re-traumatizing. Overall, though, most of the workers were remarkably forthcoming.

We spent several nights shadowing the women as they worked alongside the highway so that we could understand their process and the dangers they endure.

I was struck by how unbelievably vulnerable these women are. They had all told me about the violence they faced, but until I saw where they were working, I didn’t fully grasp just how dangerous their situation is. The highway where they operate is incredibly dark and chaotic, and the places where they service their clients offer zero protection because they are so isolated. Groups of men — many of them clearly under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs — would frequently surround a worker and begin aggressively bargaining with her, before taking her to a remote location in the nearby jungle, in an adjacent industrial area or back to their homes. Almost all of the women have been assaulted at some point.

The police would occasionally show up, but that only made the women feel more vulnerable, because many say they’ve been assaulted by police officers as well.

And for all of this risk, the amount they bring in per client is generally just $2 to $3. But as the workers told me over and over again, they have no choice: Because legal work for openly transgender people in Nepal is virtually nonexistent, it is quite literally sex work or starve.

Sujata Chaudhary, who is transgender and a former aid worker who turned to sex work to survive after losing her job amid the U.S. foreign aid cuts, poses for a photo in Kathmandu, Nepal, Friday, May 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

Princy Tamang, a former HIV outreach worker who turned to sex work to survive after losing her job amid the U.S. foreign aid cuts, poses for a portrait, Friday, May 15, 2026, in Hetauda, Nepal. Tamang, who has endured beatings from clients and has been forced to have sex without condoms since transitioning to sex work, fears she will contract HIV. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)