JAPANESE PROSTITUTES IN NAIROBI 1900

In 1900, just after the railway reached Nairobi, a number of Japanese women established a brothel at the end of Victoria Street, where they offered prostitution services.

These women were a product of what was called in Japan "Karayuki-San," which basically meant "gone abroad."" The scheme involved daughters of poor Japanese being trafficked abroad to work as prostitutes, courtesans, and geisha.

The traffickers who were male Japanese would visit, poor fishing and farming  communities, looking for girls of appropriate age. They would then pay the girls' parents some money with the promise that their  daughters were going abroad  for work. But as soon as they left Japan, the girls were passed over to a prostitution ring. It was later to be known as "Yellow Slave Traffic."

Some of these ladies ended up in Zanzibar, where they worked in brothels. When the construction of the Uganda Railway began,  they knew how lucrative the trade would be considering that those who were building the lines were mostly bachelors or married man separated from their families in Europe or Asia because of work.

As a result, a number of them left Zanzibar and sailed to Mombasa, where they followed the construction of the railway up to Nairobi. There, they set up a brothel not far from the railhead. It was situated  near the junction of the present day Tom Mboya Street and Haile Selassie Avenue. The brothel was nicknamed "Japan Legation" and was frequented by Europeans, especially those working for the railway.

Soon, they were joined on Victoria Street  (Tom Mboya Street) by African women who also began operating lodgings to fulfil men's sexual desires. Unlike the "Japanese Legation" brothel, which was a large wood and Iron Bungalow, African women operated from dingy lodgings behind Victoria.

There was always a love-hate relationship between the police and African prostitutes. Through these prostitutes the police were able to arrest criminals and recover stolen goods.

But at times, African prostitutes were considered a menace and were consequently rounded up by Nairobi police and returned to their villages where locals chiefs were tasked with restraining them  from ever setting foot in Nairobi.

The Chiefs tried their best to comply with the orders because of the heavy fine that was likely to be imposed on them in case a prostitute returned to Nairobi. But still, these African ladies managed to find their way back to Nairobi.

On the other hand, the Nairobi police allowed the Japanese prostitutes to carry on with their trade so long as no complaints were received about anything bad happening in the brothel. In fact, the police sanctioned the brothel's existence.

Apart  from the Japanese and African prostitutes in Nairobi, there were also Syrian women who had been brought to Nairobi  to work as prostitutes. The Syrian brothel was on Athi River Road just behind Lusaka Road.

Posted by Levin Odhiambo Opiyo

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