Take that job as a prostitute or else!

[Phil_Meloy]

'If you don't take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits'
By Clare Chapman
(Filed: 30/01/2005)

A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing "sexual services'' at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year.

Prostitution was legalised in Germany just over two years ago and brothel owners – who must pay tax and employee health insurance – were granted access to official databases of jobseekers.

The waitress, an unemployed information technology professional, had said that she was willing to work in a bar at night and had worked in a cafe.

She received a letter from the job centre telling her that an employer was interested in her "profile'' and that she should ring them. Only on doing so did the woman, who has not been identified for legal reasons, realise that she was calling a brothel.

Under Germany's welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job – including in the sex industry – or lose her unemployment benefit. Last month German unemployment rose for the 11th consecutive month to 4.5 million, taking the number out of work to its highest since reunification in 1990.

The government had considered making brothels an exception on moral grounds, but decided that it would be too difficult to distinguish them from bars. As a result, job centres must treat employers looking for a prostitute in the same way as those looking for a dental nurse.

When the waitress looked into suing the job centre, she found out that it had not broken the law. Job centres that refuse to penalise people who turn down a job by cutting their benefits face legal action from the potential employer.

"There is now nothing in the law to stop women from being sent into the sex industry," said Merchthild Garweg, a lawyer from Hamburg who specialises in such cases. "The new regulations say that working in the sex industry is not immoral any more, and so jobs cannot be turned down without a risk to benefits."

Miss Garweg said that women who had worked in call centres had been offered jobs on telephone sex lines. At one job centre in the city of Gotha, a 23-year-old woman was told that she had to attend an interview as a "nude model", and should report back on the meeting. Employers in the sex industry can also advertise in job centres, a move that came into force this month. A job centre that refuses to accept the advertisement can be sued.

Tatiana Ulyanova, who owns a brothel in central Berlin, has been searching the online database of her local job centre for recruits.

"Why shouldn't I look for employees through the job centre when I pay my taxes just like anybody else?" said Miss Ulyanova.

Ulrich Kueperkoch wanted to open a brothel in Goerlitz, in former East Germany, but his local job centre withdrew his advertisement for 12 prostitutes, saying it would be impossible to find them.

Mr Kueperkoch said that he was confident of demand for a brothel in the area and planned to take a claim for compensation to the highest court. Prostitution was legalised in Germany in 2002 because the government believed that this would help to combat trafficking in women and cut links to organised crime.

Miss Garweg believes that pressure on job centres to meet employment targets will soon result in them using their powers to cut the benefits of women who refuse jobs providing sexual services.

"They are already prepared to push women into jobs related to sexual services, but which don't count as prostitution,'' she said.

"Now that prostitution is no longer considered by the law to be immoral, there is really nothing but the goodwill of the job centres to stop them from pushing women into jobs they don't want to do."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml.../30/wgerm30.xml

[Deke]

Words fail me...

[jaka]

This world is sick!

[John L]

Originally Posted by Deke

Words fail me...

ditto

[Phil_Meloy]

"The government had considered making brothels an exception on moral grounds, but decided that it would be too difficult to distinguish them from bars."

Doesn't really give you much confidence in the German government if they can't tell the difference between a bar and a brothel.

[Jazzzoline]

Does that include male prostitution? knowing that most of male prostitutes have gay clients.

[Uli]

Oh behave, jazzy. I am a bartender.

[Jazzzoline]

Actually, I think prostitution is quite a dangerous job: male or female.
Who knows what kind od weirdos you'll fall on.
Internet prostitution is safer and well paid.

[Phil_Meloy]

Couldn't happen here in the UK. No job center would ever offer anyone a job that actually paid a decent hourly rate.

[Tom Storer]

Unbelievable. A move intended to "combat trafficking in women and cut links to organised crime" ends up with the government pimping for the brothels. This is an improvement??

[Monte Smith]

This is beyond absurd.

[clinthopson]

Our bureaucrats have a lot to learn.

[J Lee]

This case reminds me of both the title and the content of that classic, "The Road to Serfdom," in an especially poignant manner.

[frankenmeister7]

oh my!!

[groover]

This situation does seem to highlight the dangers of an extremely liberal society. OTOH, they should be seeing an increase in tourism revenue now that the word is out.

[GoodSpeak]

Lemme see, um...brothel...bar?

Yeah, I can see where the confusion comes in...they both start with the letter "B."


Personally, I've often gone into a bar to order a beer and gotten a woman instead.


Oh yeah.



Happens all the time.

[jesus marion joseph]

Hey, in Amsterdam you smoke dope at a "coffee shop", so why not get laid in a "bar" in Germany?

[John L]

The German government might also consider offering subsidies to potential clients of those women who have been made prostititues by the state but have trouble attracting men on their own. That could end up being cheaper than welfare support.

[Phil_Meloy]

I wonder what happens to the women who get turned down for the job?

[HenryMc]

Gives new meaning to the term "This job sucks"

[Tanager]

Originally Posted by HenryMc

Gives new meaning to the term "This job sucks"

I was thinking more along the lines of "blows," myself.

[Pete C]

Shove it.

[Dr Dave]

As strange as this situation is, there is much that is stranger in the world of prostitution. For a sort of summary article on the pros and cons of legalization of prostitution, here's an article on the subject.

[GoodSpeak]

Originally Posted by HenryMc

Gives new meaning to the term "This job sucks"

Ouch.

[Tom Storer]

Actually, "ouch" would be the right response to "This job bites."

[John L]

Originally Posted by Tom Storer

Actually, "ouch" would be the right response to "This job bites."

Slurp!

[Deke]

I guess truth isn't always stranger than fiction.

According to the current edition of Private Eye, this article probably refers to "Sabine Bright, who in July 2003 was reported to have been accidentally offered an interview for bar work in an establishment which the Berlin labour affice had failed to realise was a brothel. She made her excuses and left, her benefits entirely unaffected".

Indeed, as Die Tageszeitung has pointed out in an article about German welfare reforms, this situation could, in theory, happen, which is why the employment offices had agreed amongst each other not to deal with requests from brothels, which, in turn, is why Herr Keuperkoch is suing the Gvirlitz job centre.

As for the "If you don't take a job..." quote. No one seems to know who said that, or who to. Certainly not Sabine Bright.

I suppose the fact that this story was in the Telegraph should have been enough to set the alarm bells ringing. This is, after all, the paper that printed the story about the Slovakian man who "Peed his way out of an avalanche" weeks after it had been confirmed as an internet email joke.

[Monte Smith]

I'm not surprised.

[steve(thelil)]

I've got to spend more time in German bars.

[patricia]

Is anyone going to answer the question which was posed earlier about whether a man who is unemployed would be forced into the various sectors of the sex trade as women seem to be?
If the law is to be made equal for everybody, it would seem to me to be a valid question.
Surely no one thinks that there are no job opportunities for men in the sex trade??