The NUM/ 
Partnership
Over the past few years, there has been a marked increase in the online sex working population. NUM members have transformed from mostly street-based workers who were referred by front-line services to the majority being off-street independent workers who use digital platforms and various other technologies to advertise, engage and screen customers and to network with others and share tips and strategies. More recently, this has increased during the Covid-19 pandemic, due to poverty and redundancies driving new people to adult industries, along with sex workers who had the ability to move into online spaces choosing to do so to protect their own health and safety.
NUM provides digital and virtual supports because the bulk of working and middle-class sex industry workers need to maintain discretion when doing industry work, as they have other roles and pursuits, and they are unlikely to access resources that are not relevant to the ways that they work or those that are targeted at other populations.
Instead of assuming that all third parties are exploiters, NUM wishes to engage with those that have influence over working conditions and open dialogue between Adult Services Websites and sex industry workers to improve safety. Since sex workers do not enjoy labour rights or have any collective bargaining power, we feel that it is in keeping with our mandate to ‘end violence against sex workers’ by:
NUM’s role here is both as support to online industry working victims of crime and as a conduit for complaints about ASWs. The sites we have partnered with have committed to addressing the concerns of their customers and users.
Our relationship began in 2015 when representatives of Vivastreet tried to register for NUM alerts in an effort to explore what could be done to improve the welfare of customers advertising on the ‘Personals’ and ‘Adult Services’ categories of their platform. After several meetings and conversations, Vivastreet decided to promote NUM to their sex working customer base and to invest funds towards our provision of alerts to add posters on their platform. Subsequently, a formal partnership agreement was drawn to deliver Project Safeguard. This project was organised around several aims which included improving safety for sex workers, crime preventions, supportive signposting, increasing reporting to police, and the sharing of intelligence in pursuit of perpetrators. This project had two central features:
1) partial funding for a Criminal Justice Case Worker (CJCW); and
2) a small monthly contribution to NUM core reporting and alerting services offered to Vivastreet customers.
Vivastreet supports their sex working customers to sign up to NUM, identify and share details of accounts that were problematic or suspicious, and work with the CJCW to address safety concerns. This information would be shared with police special points of contact (SPOCs) and intelligence and NUM reports back with recommendations about accounts. There are ongoing advancements to this process as part of work towards ending online harms.
Project Safeguard also provides resources for the administration and processing of membership requests from sex workers who advertise on Vivastreet. The CJCW offers enhanced victim support to Vivastreet customers. Although not detailed in the original version of Project Safeguard, NUM engages with Vivastreet to facilitate more effective reporting to law enforcement, as well as access to sex working members for consultation on issues that impact them. Although our partnership is not based on marketing but public safety, we share information and also promote Vivastreet among our networks and other stakeholders, to prevent mischaracterisations of sex workers in the media.
Vivastreet state the following:
‘Vivastreet is a classified advertising platform that allows users to post adverts for goods and services across a broad range of categories – including sex work. NUM began working with Vivastreet in 2015, as part of the website’s commitment to enhance user safety, and improve its capacity to detect and remove inappropriate material.
While doing business online poses risks across all industries, Vivastreet recognises that sex workers who use their platform may need additional online protection, and specific support in documenting any criminal activity and violence they may experience while working – which NUM is best placed to provide.
Vivastreet encourages sex workers who use the site to become members of NUM, thereby signing up to receive our alerts and support in documenting and reporting criminal activity. In addition, it has also introduced a wide range of measures designed to enhance user safety online. Vivastreet works closely with NUM, government officials, policymakers and sex workers to prevent criminal activity, and provide a safe platform for their users.’
Most recently, Vivastreet approached NUM at onset of the Covid-19 pandemic to admniister a £100,000 corporate match to SWARM hardship funds that distributed small emergency grants to sex workers who were experiencing an immediate loss of income.
NUM models partnerships with ASWs and other corporations on the relationship established with Vivastreet in 2015.
