ABSTRACT

Prostitution in Nairobi was and is domestic labor. Prostitution and rents in the River Road area increased as the number of laborers did in Nairobi in the late 1930s. The recovery of the late 1930s involved some small demand for female wage labor, especially in domestic service, particularly childcare. Worldwide, the Wazi-Wazi form seems to develop at specific points in the economics of migrant labor, when there are thousands of men employed primarily in unskilled labor who are primarily immigrants. The amount of labor time involved in Wazi-Wazi prostitution had advantages to married women who practiced the form as well. The labor forms of prostitution were determined by the availability of housing just as housing was planned as a mechanism for labor control but was often taken over by Africans themselves for purposes inimical to colonial notions of order.