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."
Ping!!!
Longjack: Pinglist material??
Micheal: can you verify any of this (or deny)???
What in the hell kind of "happy hour" do they have over there in germany if they cant distinguish from a bar and a brothel ive obvoisly been going to all the wrong bars in my life :-)
In all due respect, it isn't as easy there as it is in the US to seek gainful empoyment.
Unions are strong in Germany, and many jobs require prerequisite education and the obtainment of some type of certificate of mastery.
The new unemployment / welfare reform (Hartz IV) has lowered benefits and required the acceptance of job offers without consideration of wages and location, but hasn't addressed the issue of the often cumbersome educational prerequisites for gainful employment, IMHO.
Hartv IV is pretty invasive. From what I've studied about it, some issues, such as the requirement to take any employment regardless of wage, and the inclusion of all household members in a study of the unemployed's financial standing.
I figured that municipalities would start hiring public works employees at rock bottom wages, similar to the WPA in the depression. I didn't think of the prostitution angle. Even if stories such as the above aren't true, they are plausible under the regulations of Hartz IV.
Moving to Germany has been an option for me for quite some time, and I have looked into employment there in the past. Under these circumstances, however, I wouldn't go near the place.
my 2 cents.
longjack
I beat you by a whole minute.
You've got to get up pretty early in the morning to beat longjack to the draw :>)
This story is devastating if true, don't you think?
longjack
This will leave you speechless.
LOL!!!!
Great comeback.Maybe she 's a madam now.She was back then.ha.
Nuremburg had a strip along the wall of the old city nicknamed of course "The Wall" where the hookers would hang out the windows and hang around outside the doors.We use to call it The"Muppet Show".Want to make them mad?Walk by with a girlfriend and they'd get real nasty.They'd get real testy if you'd make wisecracks about their situation.
That is an excellent link! Thank you.
What good is sitting alone in your room
Come hear the music play
Life is a cabaret, old chum
Come to the cabaret
Put down the knitting, the book and the broom
Time for a holiday
Life is a cabaret, old chum
Come to the cabaret
Come taste the wine, come hear the band
Come blow a horn, start celebrating
Right this way
Your table's waiting
No use permitting some prophet of doom
To wipe ev'ry smile away
Come to the cabaret, old chum
Come to the cabaret !
Leni
Not when it's the IRS doing the raping.
Given that scarcely 60-70 years ago Germany and its allies tried to exterminate the Jewish people you could argue that the level of depravity was only interrupted by the U.S. Army, the British Army, the Russian Army (oh the irony), and their allies.
Did you mean OTHER 3rd world countries?
Maybe it's the problem in legalization of prostitution.
OK, God Bless and take care
Ya think?
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