Home > Germany : ’If you don’t take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits’
Germany : ’If you don’t take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits’
by Open-Publishing - Wednesday 23 February 200510 comments
By Clare Chapman
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."
Forum posts
23 February 2005, 18:49
This story has been in circulation for some time. And, it smells like rotten fish. First, this rendition of it claims that the woman was being told she’d have to provide "sexual services" at a brothel when another variation of it reports that the brothel was merely looking for a "waitress." The unnamed woman had indicated to the unemployment job center that she would accept waitressing work for which she already had experience.
It just seems beyond passing strange that the German government would countenance forcing a woman into prostitution, albeit now legal in Germany, with the threat of cutting unemployment benefits if she refused the position, if you’ll excuse the pun.
On the other hand, there is a moral dimension that is disturbing if the waitress job was legitimate and no expectation of sexual performance was required - since the woman might object to being a part of the sex industry - and the government still threatened her with a cut in her benefits.
Does anyone out there know exactly how the unemployment law in Germany actually works?
24 February 2005, 23:42
In fact there is no German unemployment law which forces people into jobs which are indecent to say
it somewhat nice.
On the other hand the state agency called the "Arbeitsamt" does not allways check what kind of job
the offer! They are also eager to get rid of people who are on unemployment pay!
Bureaucracy has it’s own funny ways, especial if you have plenty of rules and mountains of law to
obey.
Funny, but I think this story could be true, my experience with civil servants in Germany have been
somewhat the same.
25 February 2005, 19:24
OK, Germany is now officially off my list of countries to move to when I leave the US. Forced prostitution! Yikes! Probably coming to America soon.
26 February 2005, 15:01
Who does really believe this story? I’m a german journalist, living in Goerlitz. It’s not true, that anyone can be forced to work as a prostitute. If someone want’s to know more: Ask me. my e-mail-adress: kremser@kulturquadrat.de
And who want’s to live in the US??? They don’t even know the meaning of "human rights", or what happens at Guantanamo???
8 March 2005, 20:15
In Holland if a girl leaves her prostitution ’job’ voluntarily she loses her entitlement to unemployment benefit. That is not ’rotten fish’ that is simply the official policy of the Dutch govt.
In Germany the trend to coercion is similar. When girls apply ’as waitresses’ their pimping begins and pressure is exerted. If they refuse the waitress job it is an issue.
8 March 2005, 20:19
In Germany the sex trade use the govt. job agencies to leverage girls into prostitution.
The govt. officials in Germany neither check nor do they care if they are sending girls to brothels.
Deception, dishonestly, coercion are all very common.
8 March 2005, 20:26
"Who does really believe this story? I’m a german journalist, living in Goerlitz. It’s not true, that anyone can be forced to work as a prostitute. If someone want’s to know more: Ask me. my e-mail-adress: kremser@kulturquadrat.de And who want’s to live in the US??? They don’t even know the meaning of "human rights", or what happens at Guantanamo???:
I am the director of the largest anti-trafficking NGO in the British Isles.
The reportage is essentially true to the extent that in Germany, govt. officials trick and ’leverage’ females into the sex trade by sending them to premises which are brothels.
They do not tell the applicants they are being sent to brothels. The German govt. certainly do send vulnerable teenagers and girls to work in brothels.
That is a fact, it is completely true.
It is not hypothetical.
Gregory Carlin
Director
Irish Anti-Trafficking Coalition
8 March 2005, 20:35
"In fact there is no German unemployment law which forces people into jobs which are indecent to say it somewhat nice. On the other hand the state agency called the "Arbeitsamt" does not allways check what kind of job the offer! They are also eager to get rid of people who are on unemployment pay! Bureaucracy has it’s own funny ways, especial if you have plenty of rules and mountains of law to obey. Funny, but I think this story could be true, my experience with civil servants in Germany have been somewhat the same."
Brothels are allowed to be deceptive and dishonest. German officials are allowed to trick girls into being sent to them. The govt. delivers vulnerable girls to the pimps being the equation.
The girl may not even be told she is being sent to a brothel. When she gets there the pimping will start. "Okay, try serving a few drinks", and then "why not give this a try".
The other workers will be in on the recruitment. "It is really quite fun". The German govt. has clearly allied itself to both pimping and deception.
The girls do not even know it is a brothel they are being sent to! It is a process which is not accountable, honest, moral or ethical. It is a type of trafficking.
3 March 2005, 03:35
Happily, this story is untrue. The original story was put forth a hypothetical possibility, but those who picked up the story reported it as factual:
"Newspapers have reported cases in which job centers referred women to topless bars or brothels by mistake. In a widely reported case in 2003, a Berlin job center sent a 25-year-old woman for an interview in a massage parlor, not knowing it was a brothel. However, the Federal Labor Office, which manages the dense network of state-funded job centers, said no one is sent for interviews in brothels, topless bars or striptease clubs unless they want to work there. "Basically, prostitution isn’t illegal and it’s not out of the question that we refer people to such jobs, but because we have to adhere to certain societal norms, no one who hasn’t expressed the desire to do such work will be referred there," said Ulrich Waschki, a spokesman for the Labor Office. "And if a prostitute quits her job because she’s sick of it, she won’t face the penalties we usually impose on people who voluntarily give up work." "(Source: http://washingtontimes.com/world/20050202-112808-5860r.htm )
Regardless, the story does go to show potential pitfalls of legalising sex work.
21 January 2006, 23:43
The story is true to the extent that girls are sent to premises which are brothels without being told they are being sent to a brothel. They are then expected to explain why they declined the job should that be the case. Brothels find it useful to intially recruit receptionists, cleaning staff etc. because they can then work towards pimping the girls captured in that manner. The objective is to gain access to vulnerable females who are short of money. The govt. has a system which works for the pimps. The news report was simplistic and lacked sufficient detail etc.