‘More Girls Will Get HIV in the Coming Days’: USAID Cuts Push Kenya’s Most Vulnerable Women and Girls Into Crisis

Every woman in Kawangware knows Janet Mukabwa. For young mothers in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya, she is a mentor — and a crucial lifeline. 

For the last few years, as part of a U.S Agency for International Development (USAID) funded program, Mukabwa has run sessions in local community centers for teenagers and women on child and healthcare. In the sessions, she educated mothers on hygiene, breastfeeding, and entrepreneurship. She also went door to door in the community to talk with young pregnant women, some as young as 13.  

In Kawangware, approximately nine miles west of Nairobi, 80,000 people live in informal settlements, and most survive on just $1 USD a day. In an area with little access to education and opportunity, Mukabwa acted single-handedly as a vital support system and resource. Many of the women in these settlements who have had babies have tried to give them away.

Following U.S. President Donald Trump’s suspension of USAID, Mukabwa is at a loss of what to do next. She received 3000 Kenyan shillings a week ($23 USD) for the program but now has no income.  “I can’t stop working, even for free; it’s my duty,” she said. “These are my people.” 

On January 20, moments after Trump took office, he signed an executive order freezing and reviewing nearly all U.S. foreign assistance. In late February, 90 percent of all grants were canceled with immediate effect. In Kenya, the suspension of USAID has thrown the health and future of hundreds of thousands of young girls and women into turmoil. For years, billion-dollar programs have provided not only lifesaving HIV/AIDS treatment across Kenya but also pivotal educational opportunities, from school fee subsidies to education on gender-based violence. USAID and the U.S. Embassy in Kenya did not respond to requests for comment.

“These programs sustained entire communities. People are already sliding back into poverty,” Gladys Kiio, Executive Director at the African Gender and Media Initiative Trust, told More to Her Story. “Women and girls will feel the immediate effects.” 

For local workers like Mukabwa, who live in Kenya’s poorest areas, the future of their programs, as well as their livelihoods, now hangs in the balance. 

Since the funding was suspended, Mukabwa, a single mother of two young daughters, has still provided educational programs and advice to other residents in Kawangware on her own money and time. Now, working independently, she can no longer provide referrals that helped to connect women with free health checks, access to drug rehabilitation programs, and training and work opportunities. Four women supported by Mukabwa now work in hair salons, and half a dozen even play professional football. 

“These women were my success stories; when I see them, I feel so proud,” Mukabwa said. “Now, there is uncertainty and no opportunities.”

In Kawangware, children and motorbikes pass by a vibrant mural in the middle of an alleyway. Brightly colored paintings of scenes of men committing violence against women accompany the lines “Stop Defilement” and “Stop Femicide.”

Derrick Sajir, a resident of Kawangware who worked on the mural, is a facilitator of USAID’s DREAMS program. Funded by the 2003 U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the program was aimed at preventing HIV/AIDS infections among girls and young women in the country's most vulnerable areas – to make them "Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored, and Safe.”

Since it began in 2014, DREAMS has run programs in ten African countries. In Kenya, from 2016 to 2019, it provided nearly $98 million in funding and reached over 395,000 women, prioritizing those who lived in informal settlements, had been sexually exploited, and girls in and out of school. A recent study showed that DREAMS participants in Nairobi had better schooling outcomes — such as enrollment and completing secondary school — than non-participants. 

“More girls will get HIV in the coming days; school is a social vaccine for the disease,” said Kiio from the African Gender and Media Initiative Trust. She said she has heard of many projects that have received termination letters and been completely canceled. 

In community halls in Kawangware, Sajir ran lessons on sex education, family planning, and gender-based violence three times a week, earning 750 Kenyan shillings a session (equivalent to $5.80). He estimates that he has worked with thousands of young women in the area, providing them with referrals to mental health services, legal aid, and contraceptives. The program also provided free sanitary towels and paid school fees. 

Sajir has worked on all kinds of cases — from preventing girls from having transactional sex for sanitary products, to helping imprison a man who was raping his daughter and finding her care. Now, many similar cases will go unchecked. “There are no more safe spaces,” Sajir said. “These cases will shoot back up.” 

It’s not just in Nairobi — the impact of DREAMS' suspension is being felt across Kenya, where it operated in eight counties. In Busia, near the border of Uganda, a program supporting the education of 6,000 children affected by AIDS was abruptly stopped. Now that kids will no longer have access to school fees and learning materials, it is likely their education will be cut short. 

“The program has really, really been impacted,” a Kenyan aid worker, who remains anonymous for safety reasons, told More to Her Story. “The things they were doing before, such as paying school fees or economic empowerment, are no longer there. And yet we feel that those are the structural issues that expose adolescents and young women to HIV.”

Even if the funding comes back for these programs, for many, it may be too late. “Girls who were in the program before can now not be reached,” the aid worker said. “We honestly don’t know what's happening to them now.” 

Back in Kawangware, Sajir said it would be very difficult to restart the programs and rebuild the networks. “We will have to start from zero,” he said.

He feels the same about his own prospects. His wife gave birth four months ago, but after his sessions were canceled, they were evicted from their home after being unable to pay the rent. 

“Life is now very difficult,” Sagir said. “We are still hoping something changes. Trump needs to understand the importance of this grassroots work.”