UK Government-run jobcentres are banned from advertising or promoting employment for sexual purposes*. However, this does not apply to self-employment for sexual purposes, such as OnlyFans. 

The UK Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) considers Universal Credit claimants who are OnlyFans ‘creators’ to be self-employed and they are subject to the same rules as any other self-employed claimant, such as a plumber or hairdresser.

Under DWP rules, claimants who are self-employed are given an amount they are expected to achieve through their self-employment each month. Jobcentre work coaches assess whether a claimant is taking “appropriate steps” to achieve this amount and if not, they may put pressure on her to increase her self-employed earnings, with the potential threat of sanctions, including reduced benefit or no benefit at all.

While a few women make a lot of money on OnlyFans, the vast majority make very little, with average monthly earnings being about £130. The main way that a woman can increase her OnlyFans income is by creating more explicit and degrading pornographic content and attempting to attract more paying ‘fans’ – typically by posting clips of the content on mainstream social media sites, including TikTok, Instagram and similar platforms where children are likely to be present. 

Increasing her OnlyFans visibility in this way is likely to increase attention from predators who may proposition her for in-person sex (with or without payment), and pimps and other third parties who want to cash in on her earnings. It may therefore push her into “full service” prostitution and will inevitably expose her to more risks. 

By requiring women to maintain or increase their OnlyFans income, the DWP is complicit in all of this and is implicitly acting as a pimp, because the aim is to reduce the amount of benefit these claimants are entitled to.

In other words, the DWP is pressuring some mainly young female benefit claimants to increase their engagement in what is a form of commercial sexual exploitation for the financial benefit of the Treasury – while at the same time leading to children on mainstream social media sites being exposed to more pornography and groomed to consider it is ethical to buy and sell sexual acts.

This leaves no doubt that the UK is a pimp state: a government that legitimises, regulates, and profits from the commercial sex industry.

* Section 2A of the Employment and Training Act 1973

What We Are Asking For

1. An immediate ban on the DWP putting pressure of any kind on claimants to maintain or increase their income and/or hours on OnlyFans or other commercial sex industry platforms.

2. The extension of Section 2A of the Employment and Training Act 1973 to cover self-employment in addition to employment.

3. For the DWP to recognise engagement as a creator on OnlyFans and similar platforms as a form of commercial sexual exploitation and a safeguarding risk and for it to be treated accordingly.

4. Training for all DWP work coaches and managers on the above.

Further Reading

• Everything you need to know about OnlyFans
• It’s official: The DWP pimps women on OnlyFans
• How long before UK Jobcentres move from encouraging unemployed women into OnlyFans to mandating it?
• Is the DWP morphing into a pimp?

Watch

Supporters

This petition is supported by the following organisations. If you would like to add your organisation (and you have the authority to do so), please email us at info@nordicmodelnow.org.

Organisations, United Kingdom

1. FiLiA
2. For Women Scotland
3. Glasgow Tactical Feminists
4. Male Allies Challenging Sexism (MACS)
5. Men At Work
6. Older Feminist Network
7. Rooms of our Own
8. Helen Gibson, Founder, Surrogacy Concern
9. Virago Women's Workshop CIC

Organisations, Rest of the world

1. Center Against Human Trafficking and Exploitation, Lithuania
2. End Demand Switzerland (Swiss NGO)
3. EOS - Association for research, cooperation and development (Portugal)
4. European Network of Migrant Women
5. European President of the International Council of women (ECICW)
6. Fondation Scelles (France)
7. International Coalition for the Abolition of Surrogate Motherhood (CASM)
8. Isala (Belgium)
9. Italian Coordination of the European Women's Lobby/Lef-Italia
10. Klaipeda Social and Psychological Support Center (Lithuania)
11. La Comisión para la investigación de malos tratos a mujeres (Spain)
12. Lithuanian Women's Lobby.
13. Lobby Europeo de Mujeres en España - LEM España (Spain)
14. Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies (MIGS) (Cyprus)
15. Sexual Violence Centre Cork (Republic of Ireland)
16. SISTERS - für den Ausstieg aus der Prostitution! e.V. (SISTERS  for the Exit from Prostitution! e.V.) (Germany)
17. SOLWODI Deutschland e.V. (German)
18. Women Worldwide Advancing Freedom and Equality (WWAFE)
19. Women's News Network (Australia)