Posted on 01/29/2005 8:32:29 PM PST by ijcr
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."
That is what I have been attempting to get an answer too! I just keep getting the same old, "women are wicked and deserve this", answer.
Can I object that it's against my religion?
So if you are an unemployed EU female you have a death sentence?
Hmmm.. demand huge tips for very, very little service!!
SFS
Hmmm... Forced prostitution?
Germany does have a history of this.
Block 24 at Auschwitz. Not that I'm comparing the current government in Germany to the 1943 NAZI German government, but I just find this article interesting, given the recent anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
I guess when you're looking at people as nothing more than "drones," as do all socialist governments, there's no difference between people or jobs. No moral judgements. No right or wrong. I wonder if they could also force a devout Catholic who views abortion as a sin and murder to work in an abortion clinic. I'd have to guess the answer is yes.
Mark
While I have nothing against homosexuals personally, I'd have to say that if I were forced by the government into that situation, one name immediately comes to mind... John Wayne Bobbit.
There would be a very unhappy customer, and then I suppose I wouldn't have to worry about room and board for a while!
Mark
Why not? Boxers do it, as do all professional athletes. What about soldiers? Or anyone with dangerous jobs, or jobs that depend on their physical skills.
One of the reasons people put forward against prostitution is the harm it causes the prostitute herself... Both physically and emotionally. Is she more at risk than a soldier in a war zone?
I've got some serious issues about the whole "who owns me" debate. But that's for another thread.
Mark
That's simply not the case where prostitution has been legallized.
I understand why people oppose prostitution due to moral objections (although I disagree, looking at it on a strict cost/benefit analysis to society), but the statement you made is really no different than when the anti-gunners claim that concealed carry laws will have "blook running in the streets," or shoot-outs over road rage. It's just not happening. And where prostitution is legalized, it's a high dollar business, and spreading disease would jeapordize the profits. And that's something that nobody would tolerate.
Mark
I'm sure that they'd be happy to do so, for their regular hourly rate! lol
Mark
What is it with people who constantly say, "Tax it!" Do you really think that there should be an additional tax on sex with a prostitute, or do you just mean to bring prostitution into the mainstream tax structure?
Don't forget that excessive taxes have opened a new, underground market for cigarettes; The idea here is to get prostitution out of being an underground industry.
Mark
Disgusting situation, and becoming reality sooner than even the writer had thought...
Bump for later ... ;-)
It's worse than government sanctioned depravity, it's government coerced depravity.
Prostitution is dangerous hygenically, but far less so than going to a bar and picking up a "one night stand," at least if you go to a legal and regulated brothel.
As far as breeding crime, pimps, and sexual slavery, it's not the legalization of prostitution that causes those: They're the result of keeping prostitution illegal. I've tried to help a number of women get out of prostitution. Some have been successful, others haven't. But in most cases, most of their problems have been brought on by bad previous choices, and they're unable to get out of the situations they found themselves in.
Either through drug use, abusive relationships, or a myriad of other issues, they find the only way to support themselves is through prostitution. And since it's illegal, they have NO protection at all. I've got lots of heartbreaking stories of ladies who have been beaten and robbed by clients (or boyfriends/pimps), and they have no legal recourse. I know a lady who was beaten and raped while trying to help someone jump-start a car. Since she did have a prior prostitution conviction, the police really weren't very concerned with her story, even though she had a bloodied lip, two black eyes, and bruises all over her body. It wasn't until her lawyer threatened to sue the hospital that they agreed to take a "rape kit."
In a more recent situation, a lady who was severely beaten by her "ex-boyfriend" (he didn't mind her prostituting herself, as long as she didn't see any black clients. When she did, he beat her), she tried to defend herself, and actually scratched the guy's face. The police came, and since she had a record of both prostitution and drug use, they arrested her for assault. Even though she was badly bruised, the police took his word that she attacked him, claiming that the bruises were from when a john had beat her the previous week. She bonded out the following day, and asked me to take some digital photos for her to use in court. The judge saw the photos, and issued a warrant for the ex's arrest on assault charges, and he reprimanded the officers.
These are just a few examples of what happens to prostitutes with no protection from the law. In many cases, they're forced to find pimps to "protect them," but pimps are often worse than the johns from whom they're supposed to be protecting the ladies.
When people call prostitution a "victimless crime," I disagree. But the #1 victim is the prostitute herself. And she's made the victim by the laws prohibiting prostitution.
Mark
Prostitution is legal, but religion is illegal. Get over it.
Mark
/sarcasm
I thank you for your work. I don't believe it's God's plan for anyone to be in that "biz", but I would like them to stay healthy till they get out.
BWA HA HA HA...get me ein brewski...uh, er, ein ho-ski! Ja, ja, das ict ein ho-ski! Gut! Gut!
Hartz IV fallout.
longjack
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