WINNER UK Network of Sex Work Projects

"A highly professional and hardworking group of people who take the welfare of sex workers seriously enough to apply for a lottery grant (and get it), to start a proper centre for their work in Manchester. This is exactly what the industry needs at a time when the Home Office is still going over old ground, believing long-discredited myths, and carrying out feeble excuses for research." -Tuppy

The United Kingdom Network of Sex Work Projects was established in 2002. The UK Network of Sex Work Projects (UKNSWP) is a non-profit, voluntary association of agencies & individuals working with sex workers. The UK NSWP acts as an umbrella organization for support services working with sex workers throughout the United Kingdom. We currently have over 60 project members. Member organisations include sex work projects in most towns and cities with a visible sex industry. They may be sex worker-led, health and/or local authority-managed, children's charities, other voluntary organisations, and agencies with a religious ethos. Many have sexual health and HIV prevention as a major focus for their work, but wider health issues, protection from violence, legal rights, housing, drugs, education, and alternative lifestyle choices are also addressed. Two-thirds of our member organisations are projects specifically for sex workers; others address sex work issues within youth work, drugs, sexual health, health promotion, or gay men's agencies. Individual members include academics and others with expertise in the area of sex work.

Our Mission Statement is:

To promote the health, safety, civil and human rights of sex workers, including their rights to live free from violence, intimidation, coercion or exploitation; to engage in the work as safely as possible; and to receive high quality health and other services in conditions of trust and confidentiality, without discrimination on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, disability, race, culture or religion.

THE UK NSWP "BIG LOTTERY" WORK PROGRAM

In 2005 the UK NSWP was awarded £359,291 from the Big Lottery Fund. This will enable UK NSWP for the first time to employ staff and move forward with a programme of activities over the next three years. The main activities are to;

Employ a full time National Information and Participation Officer and part time Administrator (in post from July 18th 2005)
Encourage and facilitate networking and information sharing amongst sex work projects through developing regional/home nation forums and issue based working groups within the UK
Promote multi-agency approaches to combat the social exclusion and reduce the vulnerability of sex workers
Develop and promote a national information and resource centre bringing together international and national research and educational materials
Develop and disseminate good practice guidelines for sex work projects and agencies working with sex workers
Develop and disseminate a directory of services for sex workers within the UK
Develop and promote a website resource for disseminating information and enabling communication between sex work projects and access to information for sex workers
Develop and disseminate a Resource Handbook for sex work projects who do not have access to the Internet
Develop and facilitate regional/home nation training events and national conference
Develop and maintain links with national and home nation policymakers.

We hope this activity will strengthen the capacity of the UK NSWP to continue to lobby for policy and service provision which promote the health, safety, civil and human rights of sex workers.