'Work As A Prostitute Or Risk Losing Benefits'
By Clare Chapman - The Telegraph - UK -29 January 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 legalized 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, 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 - 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 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 centre, 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 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 centers, 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 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 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 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."
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2005.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/
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