German Unemployment problem: shocking story!
Sorry if this has been posted before. Do you think any of this is true? I am sure it isn't, actually. But let's hear. Some German point of view would be intresting avtually:
'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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03-15-2005, 11:19 PM
