Legal assistant, peer educator and sex employee Bell breaks barriers in DRC – stories

December 9, 2024

“Prostitution is solely our job. We are people like everyone else, so we will need to have rights like everyone else.

Bell is a paralegal, peer educator and sex employee within the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Sex staff too often face stigma, discrimination and criminalization that prevent them from accessing HIV prevention, testing and care. Sex staff are 4 times more prone to be infected with HIV in comparison with the final population.

Bell works tirelessly to coach sex staff about their rights and supply them with access to health care, psychosocial support and legal services on the Center Convivial in Kinshasa: a facility run by Global Fund partners BWANYA and PASCO.

Bell was inspired to take up this work after witnessing sexual violence against prostitutes and their wrongful imprisonment.

“When something bad happens, sex workers are the first targets of intimidation and discrimination.”

Bell wants her community to know their rights and know where to show after they need support.

“We tell them that there is no marginalization in the center,” he says. “If they come here, they will find someone who will listen to them, medicine – they are welcome, they will have someone who will take care of them.”

Access to justice and life-saving health care are human rights.

Since 2017, the Global Fund’s Breaking Down Barriers initiative has invested greater than $200 million in groundbreaking efforts in 24 countries to beat barriers to laws, policies and practices that limit people’s access to health services.

Investment priorities include reducing stigma and discrimination in health care and other settings, increasing legal literacy and access to justice for key and vulnerable populations, and community-led efforts to reform harmful laws, policies and practices.

The Breaking Down Barriers initiative puts knowledge and skills into the hands of individuals affected by HIV, tuberculosis and malaria in order that they can understand, claim and safeguard their human rights related to health.