Sex work during colonialism was often linked to migration. As the colonial economy grew and as 20th-century war efforts developed, African male migrants were drawn to urban towns, military settlements, and mining camps, which increased opportunities for African women to engage in prostitution as a form of individual and family labor. Sex workers in the colonial period often achieved increased economic and social autonomy by becoming independent heads of households, sending remittances back to their rural families, and accumulating wealth.
Colonial regulation of prostitution was often lax until the outbreak of World War II, when colonial administrators became concerned about the spread of sexually transmitted infections among European troops stationed in Africa. The modern African sex work industry, composed of diverse street-based and venue-based economies, is shaped by labor, migration, and globalization. In response to these systemic abuses, an African sex worker rights movement emerged in the s and has spread throughout the continent.
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