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.