Based upon detailed life histories of 100 Ugandan sex workers, this article documents women’s pathways into prostitution through marital separation and the need to support children via rural-urban migration to obtain wage work in Kampala. The money women got selling sex, and from other jobs they did, helped some to independently pay for their children’s school fees, their house rent and manage to feed their family without receiving support from partners. In their narratives women portrayed themselves as mothers, wives, partners, friends and workers with self-esteem and the hope of improvement in their lives through their own efforts