Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Common Interests Work in a Brothel or loose unemployment

And interesting article (not sure if it's for real, though).

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Prostitution was legalized in Germany just over two years ago and brothel owners ââ?¬â?? who must pay tax and employee health insurance ââ?¬â?? were granted access to official databases of jobseekers. A provision in the German welfare system is forcing out-of-work women to choose between taking jobs in the sex industry or losing their unemployment benefits.

A waitress claims she is being forced into prostitution by the government. 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 center 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, realize 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 ââ?¬â?? including in the sex industry ââ?¬â?? 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 centers 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 center, she found out that it had not broken the law. Job centers that refuse to penalize 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 specializes 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 centers had been offered jobs on telephone sex lines. At one job center 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 centers, a move that came into force this month. A job center 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 center for recruits.

"Why shouldn't I look for employees through the job center 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 center 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 legalized in Germany in 2002 because the government believed that this would help to combat trafficking in women and cut links to organized crime.

Miss Garweg believes that pressure on job centers 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 centers to stop them from pushing women into jobs they don't want to do."

At least they will be getting paid for what they are...

Although I don't disagree with the theory of making someone who is unemployed work in a job they 'can' do, but don't because they don't like it ... I think that there should be certain limitations.
The sex industry is something that should be played totally seperate to that, as it is in a totally different moral plane.

they sure wouldn't be "tight" anymore, eh?

Here is how a German freind just explained it to me:

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While some parts of the article are correct, the main point is most probably complete hogwa... is true that prostitution was legalized in Germany in 2002. The rationale behind that move was the following. It's a fact that prostitution exists in society, ever has and ever will, no matter whether legalized or not. Bringing it on a legalized level gives the state much more (legal and otherwise) control over prostitution. And those women who VOLUNTARILY choose to earn their money as prostitutes can now enjoy social benefits like health insurance, unemployment insurance or a pension scheme. And, in licensed brothels, they can work in a hygienic environment under safer conditions.

It is also true that the job centres can cut unemployment benefits for people who refuse to accept a legal job without good reason. It is untrue that unemployment benefits are completely terminated in such a situation. The actual consequence is that payment is reduced to a lower level.

So taken together one might expect that women can now be forced to accept - now legalized - jobs in the sex business, or else they have to face cuts in their unemployment benefits. But it's very likely that the claim that such actually happened already is complete hogwash. I have not heard or read about such a case, and I'm quite sure that it would have made great headlines in all media in Germany. One reason why such a scenario is unlikely is the fact that job centres have a fair level of discretion about the decision whom they penalise for refusing a job offer. And there is a collective voluntary self-commitment of all job centres to not actively offering jobs in the sex business, and hence to not penalise people for refusing such jobs.

The combination of both laws - legalizing prostitution on the one hand and penalising people for refusing legal job offers - created a sitution which was simply not planned. It can be expected that prostitution will be exempted by law from normal job placement services in the near future. Until then, the voluntary self-commitment of all job centres serves the same purpose.

The important point is that the term "legalized" in the context of prostitution in Germany does not mean that it is a profession like any other. It is a "semi"-form of legalization for the benefits of women who already work in that field, to provide them with social benefits and better conditions like said above. Prostitution will not go away when society simply averts its eyes, or when society wages a costly yet ineffective legal war against it. Legalization aims to take out the most ugly parts from prostitution - violence against the women working in that field, women being left with next to nothing after their "career" is over, and the dangers of STD's.