PLA Notes CD-ROM 1988-2001 14 Extracts

Two years ago, a peer education programme was developed in Nepal to equip urban sex workers with the skills to help their fellow workers practise safer sex, to update their own knowledge on risks from unsafe sex and to provide a forum for sex workers to discuss imaginative approaches to safer sex beyond the condom. Initially 18 sex workers, all women, attended and this number has increased as the programme has developed. The women are keen to become peer educators because they are interested to learn about health issues and enjoy increased status among their peers because they give out condoms and assist other sex workers in the use of local services for sexually transmitted diseases.