Migration and Prostitution

Migration and Prostitution

Geographical mobility is a recurring feature of prostitution. Historical analysis shows the logics of internal migrations, since the Middle Ages of women who came from the countryside to work as domestic servants, workers in the nineteenth century or prostitutes. In addition to these internal migrations, there have been international migrations linked to colonization, wars and globalization. Politics has also played a role, sometimes as a lever of mobility, sometimes as a barrier. This overview shows the extent to which sexuality represents a migratory resource, but also the extent to which it is through this geographical mobility that access to the sex market is envisaged.

In: Moralli, Melissa; Oso, Laura; Ribas Mateos, Natalia (Eds.), Elgar encyclopedia of global migration: new mobilities and atrivism (pp. 363–366). Northampton, UK: Edward Elgar.