Even though conflict play a role in the trajectory that drive women into sex work, there are other multiple drivers. This paper is based on in-depth and multiple conversations with 21 women engaged in sex work in Lira town, northern Uganda. While sex work is viewed primarily as a form of livelihood, to provide immediate basic needs, women interviewed see it as a temporal strategy to an independent life. Social networks, friends and relatives were important enabling factors for women to start sex work. However, most women interviewed had layers of personal life challenges starting from childhood; histories of abuses, broken families, violence, bad work conditions, early sexual debut/relations and childbirth. These factors were further exacerbated by experiences of poverty, conflict and the patriarchal gendered norms, ideologies and institutions of their society; shaping their future life courses and eventually ending up in sex work.