This paper highlights the challenges faced by female sex workers living and working in the urban informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya, during the Covid-19 outbreak and the aftermath of the pandemic. Using data collected through phone interviews during the immediate crisis, we document the experiences of urban poor sex workers, illustrating the acute problems they faced, including precarious housing with the reality of eviction and demolition. The paper highlights the ramifications of the Covid-19 crisis for the sex industry and predominantly women working within this informal, illegal economy. Through our empirical data we illustrate how the nature of selling sex has changed for sex workers in this context, increasing risks of violence including police abuses. We argue that examining the Covid-19 crisis through the lens of one the most marginalised populations graphically highlights how the pandemic has and will continue to deepen pre-existing structural urban inequalities and worsen public health outcomes among the urban poor. Sex worker communities are often located at the intersections of structural inequalities of gender, class, race and nation and the socio-spatial fragmentations of how they live make them some of the most vulnerable in society. We close with comments in relation to sexual citizenship, exclusionary state practices and the feminisation of urban poverty.
本文重点介绍了在新冠肺炎疫情期间和疫情之后，在肯尼亚内罗毕城市非正规住区生活和工作的女性性工作者所面临的挑战。我们使用在紧急危机期间通过电话采访收集的数据，记录了城市贫困性工作者的经历，说明了他们面临的严重问题，包括不稳定的住房以及被驱逐和拆除的现实。本文强调新冠肺炎危机对性行业以及在这种非正规、非法经济中工作的人们（主要是女性）的影响。通过我们的经验数据，我们说明了在这种环境下，性工作者的性出卖的性质所发生的变化，这些变化增加了包括警察滥权在内的暴力风险。我们认为，通过一个最边缘化的人群的视角来审视新冠肺炎危机，能够生动地凸显疫情如何已经并将继续加深本已存在的结构性城市不平等，并导致城市贫民公共卫生状况的恶化。性工作者社区通常属于遭受性别、阶级、种族和民族等结构性不平等多重影响的人群，生活中的社会空间碎片化使他们成为了社会中最脆弱的群体。在文章的结尾，我们发表了性公民身份、排斥性政府行为和城市贫困女性化方面的评论。.
Keywords: Nairobi; gender violence; informal settlements; poverty; sex work.
© Urban Studies Journal Limited 2021.