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."
I wonder what the interview entailed?
Outsourcing?
I'm glad that this is such a joke to you. "They wanted to Feminize everything", I have no idea what that means. Think of it this way though. If homosexuality is no longer immoral than males could be forced to work in whore houses also, to service the male homosexuals. Is that funny to you?
The lady has a case to take against the government.
End of story.
This is a loophole that hasn't been closed.
So the enlightened German government has done two things:
1. Force women to choose between starving and prostitution.
2. Given anyone who wants to open up a brothel a steady stream of service providers. All a prospective brothel owner has to do is target a high-unemployment area and bingo, he forces female residents looking for work to "work" at his business, or face starvation.
(sarcasm)
I'm so glad we have old Europe demonstrating such outstanding moral leadership. This indeed is why our boys left their blood and souls on Omaha Beach and in the Ardennes.
(/sarcasm)
I wonder...has Germany also legalized homosexual prostitution? What's to stop them for essentially forcing a heterosexual man into gay prostitution?
Yeah, the Europeans are so sophisticated and advanced.
Exactly.
Remember that not long ago our own IRS was running a brothel in Nevada...the Mustang Ranch.
I'm assuming that their new law is Politically Correct and would include males too.
I wonder what the males will do when forced into homosexual prostitution?
What if the unemployed woman is married? Does German law require married women to be hookers or else lose benefits?
I see nothing that suggests married women are to be treated differently than unmarried women. The whole scheme is sickening.
You just can't make this stuff up. Incredible.
Oh my goodness..Shirley Jones won an oscar as street walker..should she turn in her benefits????????
Remind me of how prostitution should be legal because it's victimless?
Looks like every woman not willing to prosititute themselves in Germany between ages 16-55 is a now a potential victim.
The bottom of the slippery slope. If prostitution is legal, then there is no reason why anyone should turn down an offer of employment in such an industry and expect to keep their benefits. It's a job and an income. It keeps the unemployment figures low. If Europeans are so sexually liberated, then why would women complain about this type of work?
This apparently comes from a major newspaper, the Telegraph, but it's still a U.K. paper and they all like tend to sensationalize the news. In other words, the credibility of this article is highly questionable.
So let's not jump to conclusions. If this did not have a link to a real newspaper, I'd immediately assume it was an urban legend (without even bothering to check Snopes). We all know how much the MSM in this country lies and distorts and gets things wrong and often just makes things up. British tabloids are even worse. I still think that's a more likely explanation than the German government requiring women to become prostitutes.
Of course, even if this report turns out to be false, it's a sad commentary on Europe that it should sound plausible.
Well, at least the German girl complained about her plight.
The German men, forced to work in the new EU homosexual brothels, haven't so far filed the same complaint...
It's a joke, son. You just didn't "get it."
Government sponsored rape is a riot, isn't it? /s
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.