German National Employment Agency sending unemployed women into whorehouses

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/30/wgerm30.xml

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'If you don't take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits'
By Clare Chapman
(Filed: 30/01/2005)

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."

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I wonder if they need a HR manager or product tester, I would give Snapper a reference

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What a conundrum for the government- I imagine they should leave it up to the woman, keep the option of working in a brothel on the table; but if they refuse- it shouldn't impact their unemployment at all.

Unemployment is a funny thing. Here in the states you get a certain amount of unemployment after it's gone it's gone. If you can't get a job you're SOL. If you lose your house, car and end up on the streets, to bad. It's sad. It isn't right. You work for so many years, pay your taxes- but in the end it doesn't matter.

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CB re. the US. It's the old (economic) argument of private vs public good. Low taxes means more funds retained in individuals' hands which means they can live a "better" (aka consumer) lifestyle, provided they have income. But the flipside of low taxes is low public expenditure, on things like welfare, public transport, public amenities, etc. Results in haves and have-nots and tension between them, and you get to see phenomena like gated communities. The saving grace for the US in recent decades has been economic growth which has given rise to relatively low unemployment, both raising tax take in the aggregate and taking the edge off the tension (so very evident in the 70's and 80's).

As to sex-work, as I believe prostitution is euphemisticaly called. No problem on a free choice basis, but I'm with CB that refusal should not result in denial of benefit. But that's my personal moral take. The interesting argument is that, if such work is no longer morally repugnant, then what's the problem. I can see the argument "Why should you receive a benefit when your moral perspectives are out of line with the societal average?" We may see it as being different from, for example, wearing a burqa (veil) but is it? Just a matter of degree.

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It might come under personal freedom.
There was a company in America which sacked some workers because they wouldn't submit to a test to find out if they were smoking - at home, not just at work. No matter how much I abhor smoking that is, to me, a personal liberty stolen.
Closer to home there was the case of the vegan who was offered work by his job centre in a butchers; of course he was not forced to take the job, but an opportunist solicitor could have lept into action with a claim for hurt feelings or something - you know the routine.
There has to be many reasons why not to even try for such a job without getting to things like religious views or job satisfaction; just because it is legal does not make it instantly acceptable to everyone - or socially or personally acceptable to you, or your friends and family. I would have to ask the government officials who have implimented this decision if they would be comfortable with their own wives or daughters being forced to take up jobs within the sex industry, and if not why should anyone else be forced into it either? And is it solely a preserve of the fairer sex - are young men being offered the choice of either becoming a rent boy or financially poorer, on the advice of their job centres?

Flood

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Hi Gnome-

I have a very strong opinion about government entities taking stances on morality, mainly that they shouldn't, ever. Morality is a concept that means something different to each and every person and the government should not attempt to enforce a perceived standard on the population. As far as the sex industry (as Flood well put it) goes; it is up to a woman if she wants to sell herself and up to a man if he wants to buy "her". The government should cast neither a positive or negative light on it whatsoever. In theory the German government should be well within their rights to cut her unemployment because she has refused employment; however the reality of the situation is that the employment does present some very real moral issues in some people and therefore that has to be taken into consideration; her benefits should not be cut.

The problem is not that the work is no longer "morally repugnant" I think it's more that the government has decided not to make that decision of morality for the population; therefore they see it as just another job, and she refused it. But, given that people will find it morally repugnant; as I said before; they must keep that in mind when being quick to cut unemployment benefits. As I said in my first post- it's quite the conundrum.

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I quite agree, as I said in my post above, I'm with you on this one. The issue seems to be that German law has defined the sex-industry as being lawful, and this has been extended into an argument that it therefore becomes (what ... unlawful?) to decline employment in a lawful occupation. Is it a logical (ie. objective) extension? I don't think so. The objective extension is that it is lawful to offer the job, not that it is unlawful to decline it. But where is the line drawn that allows a moral objection to override an otherwise objective arrangement?

I (and you, and I daresay many others) could stand up and say, that (what's suggested) is not a reasonable interpretation of the law. Objectively we would be wrong. All we are saying is that we believe a person may reasonably decline (such employment) on the basis of her (Flood makes the observation that this appears to be sexist too) personal morals.

This is a can of worms.

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I would have to ask the government officials who have implimented this decision if they would be comfortable with their own wives or daughters being forced to take up jobs within the sex industry, and if not why should anyone else be forced into it either?
Flood

Well, I'd have to point to my post about it being a matter of enforcing moral precendants on an entire population. How can the government decide what is morally reprehensible and what isn't? It has to be left up to the indvidual person what they will or will not subject themselves to. I think the government would have a "right" in theory to withhold unemployment from anyone who refuses to take a job that's available and meets their needs, however, again, in reality it is impossible because some individual people may have a moral objection to certain employment (such as brothel work); and as the government can not involve themselves in this; nor can they base their decision to withold needed monies on it, either.

It doesn't matter how they would feel about their wives or daughters partcipating; because they can't make the decision based on that. Or, shouldn't.

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It doesn't matter how they would feel about their wives or daughters partcipating; because they can't make the decision based on that. Or, shouldn't.

But some politicians will undoubtably make decisions based upon the assumption that their own family and friends will never be in the situation where they are given that choice, thanks to a combination of private schools and daddies credit card, etc.
So what happens when the offspring leave home and try to exist without riding on their parents name - and fail? In Britain there are always one or two politicians whose children might be regarded as an embarrassment to to their government career - think of Mark Thatcher or Leo Blair, or the recently outted lesbian daughter of some right-wing American politician (yes, although I can't remember his name I do know that he is behind her - but that won't help him and his career). Imagine the glee in the red-topped tabloids in Britain if it became public that Leo Blair (who likes a drink, allegedly, and is therefore a likely embarrassment to his father through newspaper exposure) had been 'offered' the job of waiter in a Soho lapdancing club, or behind the counter in a sex shop by his job centre placement officer.
Its a bit like military training - a good officer would never ask his men to do anything he wouldn't, apparently, so why should politicians bring in such a ruling if they would not let their own children do it?
As a small straw poll - how many here would comply with the German law and work in a brothel if it was the only job they were offered after a year of unemployment? My feeling is that it won't be many...

Flood

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It's worse than making a vegan work as a butcher, as bad as making a Muslim work in a ham processing factory. It's not acceptable on many moral, legal, or technical grounds. It would constitute state sponsored rape, sexual assault, assault, and many other things. The problem is not that prostitution is right or wrong morally, but that sex is something personal. To be totally crude about it, if I can't get a woman to swallow, why the hell should the government demand that she does? That would be a major infringement of human rights. But then again, there has been a precedent of forcing women to work in brothels in Germany prior to this.....