Be a prostitute, or lose your unemployment benefits?!

[TXlib]

'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.

More...

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I generally have supported the legalisation of prostitution, as I felt that if it were legal and regulated, it would be safer for the women involved.

However, if it would result in women being pushed unwillingly into it with the blessing of the government, then I say, burn that government to the fucking ground!

It dumbfounds me that the Germans would draw no distinction between working in a bar and working as a prostitute... it is beyond unconscionable. The German government has now put itself in the very position of enslaving women into the sex industry, which it sought to reduce or eliminate with the legalisation of prostitution.

The only thing I can imagine is that this decision was made by somebody who wants to see the legal status of prostitution in Germany reversed.

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. Wow - that's awful!

[brainshrub]

2. I agree with you assessment of the situation.

I think this is a legal SNAFU that can be easily fixed with some legislative tweaking.

In the meantime, it makes great cannon-fodder for the religious zealots who want to legislate what a woman does with her body.

[rocktivity]

3. Here's what other DUers had to say on the topic

'If you don't take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits'

You're welcome.

:headbang:
rocknation

[TXlib]

6. Thanks

I searched DU for relevant keywords, but that thread did not come up.

Anyway, it devolved pretty quickly into pretty much unrelated topics.

[TXlib]

4. The problem is that many laws logically need exceptions

There must be a category of job which a person can refuse for reasons of conscience or fear for personal safety.

You wouldn't put a recovering alcoholic into a bar, either, but I imagine the Germans would.

[WildClarySage]

5. Snopes addresses this story- may or may not be true.

http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/brothel.asp

[bobbobbins]

7. I always find the term 'unemployment benefits' amusing

[asthmaticeog]

8. This bullshit again?

[TXlib]

9. What do you mean?

[Kellanved]

10. The story is 100% grade A bull.

Not only is promotion of prostitution still illegal in Germany, but also there is a guarantee by the federal job agency not to send people to jobs in the sex industry.

And: there are already a few hundred threads about it.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

11. Thanks for giving us the scoop from the place itself K

It really smelled like one of those "bash-euros" propaganda lies. It's really getting old.