Despite earning Sh20, 000 a night in her job as a sex worker in the city since she was 17 years old, Jane Watiri decided to turn a new leaf in her life and is now a preacher.
She says she was not one of the common hookers in Nairobi’s red light district-Koinange Street; hers was a vengeance mission after being heartbroken by a man she loved.
“I was not the average prostitute,” she told Nairobi News. “I was quite dangerous. I used to steal from my clients; I would carry everything; clothes, shoes phones, keys and even wedding rings which I sold for Sh3, 000 in Eastleigh. I used to really mess up these men.”
At just a tender age of14, Watiri, now 38 years old reveals that she would go clubbing with friends after refusing to join secondary school.
The reggae nights got too much and at 16, she was arrested for loitering and jailed for one month at Lang’ata Womens Prison. After her release, she met a young man whom she fell in love with and she got pregnant and married.
However, as fate would have it, she narrates, “He left me for an older woman and there I was, 17 years old, with a baby boy, no education and no job. I was very angry.”
She decided to seek vengeance buy hurting men which brought her to Koinange where she vented hr anger on men for seven years.
Watiri would change her looks on a weekly basis to avoid being recognized by men she had hurt.
However, in 2004, a man of God talked to her about the love of God but she did not understand it immediately since she was too drunk.
“In my whole life, I have never experienced love and care. The idea of love was very strange,” she continues. “He bought me many bottles of beer and left. Afterwards, I started thinking of changing.”
One day, a short while later, she made up her mind to ditch the life of a prostitute and she walked into a church where her life took a different turn.
She met George Mwangi who was a gangster for five years. Together they had a beautiful daughter. Mwangi was later killed by police.
Watiri avers she stayed in with Mwangi because he accepted her as she was and had hoped she would change him.
Today, Watiri is a preacher at Streams or Living Water Grace Centre Church in Pipeline estate. She offers counseling services to sex workers.
Her family though, is not pleased with her public proclamation of having lived as a prostitute but she says it helps in saving the lost souls.
“My family has an issue with me speaking to the media because it causes them embarrassment. But I tell my story because I know there are people out there who need to hear my story and know that it is possible to change.”