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

[BERIGAN]

'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."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml.../30/wgerm30.xml

[mikeweil]

The two sides of a very sticky coin ... I bet German prostitutes never would have fought for the legal recognition of their job had they known about the implications of the new Hartz IV reforms.

[Claude]

That's a funny story, but when british media report bizarre things happening on the continent (and vice versa) it must be taken with a grain of salt.

Unemployed being penalized for not accepting a job in prostitution is as unlikely to happen in Germany as elsewhere.

Brothel boss Ulrich Kueperkoch obviously enjoys to be in the news:

German labor office gives brothel boss a hard time

RED LIGHT: Ulrich Kueperkoch has run into a bureaucratic blockade -- the Federal Labor Office -- in his attempt to place ads with job-placement agencies for prostitutes

REUTERS , GOERLITZ, GERMANY

Wednesday, Aug 20, 2003,Page 6

In less than a month, Ulrich Kueperkoch will open his new brothel. Calls have been pouring in from patrons eager to pay a visit. The only problem is, he has no girls to welcome them.

Germany's Federal Labor Office has rejected his job adverts seeking "hostesses for erotic services" for his "Golden 3 Privatclub" near the historic town of Goerlitz on the Polish border, even though prostitution is legal in Germany.

In fact, prostitutes enjoy worker protection rights and are eligible to social security benefits under a law passed in 2001 by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's center-left government.

Kueperkoch's dispute with the Labor Office, which runs a network of job-placement agencies, has grabbed headlines because it shows the country's bureaucracy is lagging behind the progressive policy makers in Berlin.

A spokesman for the Federal Labor Office in Nuremberg said: "We believe an individual's rights can be infringed if they are faced by these kinds of job placement offers against their will. So we decided not to be active in that market sector."

Kueperkoch, 45, a chatty and affable divorcee with a teenage daughter, said the office's objection was beside the point.

"I only want the adverts to be available to interested parties. Of course I'm against the idea of someone having to take the job," he said.

"I could easily run the club with freelance workers and just let the rooms. But I want to run a normal business and pay my taxes," he said

So far Kueperkoch's efforts to recruit workers by advertising in newspapers have led to only unacceptable offers.

"I've had offers to staff the club -- but only by `buying' the women which I'm against. One guy turned up with his wife and said I could do anything with her for six months for 7,500 euros [uS$8,450]. I want no part in that. The women must want the job," he said.

With about 4.5 million jobless and the government struggling to meet its budget deficit targets, Kueperkoch said it was naive of the Labor Office to take a moral stand against a profession that is a fact of life.

"If you look at newspaper ads, it's plain to see how many people are working in the sex trade," he said.

Kueperkoch believes only genuine government backing for its own legislation will rid the trade which employs some 400,000 people in Germany of its associations with crime and vice.

"Prostitution must be regulated. This should help to curb the influence of criminals, and improve the lot of those working in it. Banning the adverts seems dishonest because this is an issue which exists and will not just go away," she said.

"The irony is that unemployment is at 20 percent around here," he said. "If everything goes according to plan, my club will create 20 full-time jobs, with everyone paying taxes."

However, the lure of increased tax revenues is evidently not enough to overcome misgivings about permitting the world's oldest profession equal status on today's job market.

"I think they're moral objections," said Stephanie Klee, the head of Germany's Federal Association for Sexual Services, who also works independently as a prostitute.

http://taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives...8/20/2003064488

Edited January 31, 2005 by Claude

[Rooster_Ties]

The government had considered making brothels an exception on moral grounds, but decided that it would be too difficult to distinguish them from bars.

Bet there'd be a number of husbands that'd love to use that excuse...

"I'm sorry honey, I swear I thought it was just a bar!!!!"

Edited January 31, 2005 by Rooster_Ties

[JohnJ]

The two sides of a very sticky coin ...

Interesting use of words Mike.