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 EXACTLY the problem. It explains why BMW makes cars in South Carolina, and Mercedes in Alablama. The thought of trying to build more plants in Germany than they are already stuck with is unthinkable in their current economic environment. Same reasoning for a whole host of related parts suppliers who now have a large portion of their work in the US.
Gives a whole new meaning to the term "f-ed up economy."
Probably --- it's like with abortion --- once the government legalizes it then refusing to take a job or work for an abortionist becomes an issue and an employee risks their job by not wanting to participate. The government can decide if the employee has a right to refuse or not.
It's even worse in the USA with abortion which is a worse thing than prostitution. How many hospital employees are intimidated into participating one way or another in abortion procedures that they oppose?
Well, here is more that proves you are right:
Big sperm race is staged on German reality TV
Luke Harding in Berlin
Sunday January 30, 2005
The Observer
After Big Brother and Jungle Camp, Germans can tune in to a TV reality show this week that breaks new ground in trashiness ... Sperm Race. Twelve men will compete against each other to see which one of them has the 'fastest' sperm.
The contestants, who include two German celebrities and a health freak, begin by donating sperm in a clinic, say the programme's producers, Endemol.
The sperm will then be frozen and sent to the company's studio in Cologne, where the sperm will 'race' towards an egg - lured by a chemical that encourages them across the finishing line. Three doctors, including a gynaecologist, will be on hand to make sure the sperm behave correctly, while cameras will record it all.
As well as laying claim to the title of Germany's most fertile man, the winner will also be given a suitably German reward, a red Porsche.
Endemol Germany's president, Boris Brandt, denied yesterday that Sperm Race represented a new low point in dumbed-down TV. He claimed that the show had a serious scientific purpose. 'Sperm Race is serious. Fertility is a big thing in Germany,' he told Germany's Bild newspaper.
'About 1.8 million German men are unable to have children because they suffer from poor sperm. And there are disappointed girlfriends and wives, as well as parents who wait in vain for grandchildren.'
Brandt, whose company is responsible for the German Big Brother , said the cameras would not follow the contestants into the cubicles when they donated sperm.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1401672,00.html
No --- I got it --- and I agree. I was just adding about abortion work being similar here. I know a young mother who was pressured to take a job as a receptionist in an abortion clinic.
I'd like to see an answer to why we wouldn't devolve into a situation where women and men would be coerced into prostitution by the unemployment system by the prospect of losing benefits.
If it's a legal line of work, and the government is desperate enough to get people off the unemployment rolls, I don't see how you could stop it.
The ACLU would weigh in on this--on the side of the government. They have supported legal prostitution and porn for years, and support forcing prolife medical personnel to participate in abortions. I can't imagine them not supporting the government in a situation like this in Germany.
How many Helen Thomas's look alikes in the profession would it take ?
I can see this happening with Germans. Stupid lazy fools dependent on the government for guidance in every detail of their lives. What was the last significant German scientific development? Zyclon B? Wow, I'm impressed.
The way the world is going, I'm surprised she wasn't charged with a hate crime for refusing.
The same people believe in genocide, enuff said
I would guess turnabout is fair play, in the sense that if you're going to be part of the system, you've got to abide by the various non-discrimination laws. So the brothel would have to accept the uglies or risk a lawsuit, right>
A Pyrrhic victory. Maybe the strategy would be for...never mind-too bizarre.
Legalize it, regulate it (with regular health inspections) and tax it. Let's not pretend that it will "go away."
No way, I don't want what is happening in Germany to happen here, I don't want to even think of a country where that kind of immoral behavior could be forced on the nations young women. They are the mothers of the future.
Some may not care what happens in the future, to our children, grandchildren, nieces, even neighbors. But I for one, Do!
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
While that may be, no woman should be forced into it, or even pressured into it. If it is happening in Germany, it can happen here.
This has always been my question. Also, why can't we get prescription medications without having to pay for a doctor's visit? The only reason should be for public health (e.g., to prevent overuse of antibiotics--leading to resistant bacteria). Otherwise, the hypocrisy with abortion is crazy.
However, that doesn't mean a woman should be forced to (a) become a prostitute, (b) take medications, or (c) have an abortion. Only in the third case is there an innocent life lost...it should be the only one banned!
"Slave to the Government" ping
Bingo.
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