Legal prostitution vs. unemployment benefits

Certainly this can´t be so. Is it really possible?

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

take care,
space

Sheez! Now the goverment is forcing women into prostitution? What's next?

Well, the discussion here is, it LEGAL ? REALLY ? so its a means of work, just like a office worker or something. Although I would have to question the LEGAL part.

Totally agree with the argument to legalise brothels here in the fight to crackdown on the illegal sex industry.

Before I left Blighty the BBC put on an excellent drama showing exactly what happens to these poor E European girls who become literally sex slaves.

They are raped and beaten up regularly. They can't run away because the mafia ar$eholes who have tricked them into coming to the West (in this drama the boyfriend of one of the 2 girls actually "sold" them for a few thousand dollars) threaten to attack their families back home.

I can't imagine what it must be like. There's that freeky ad on German MTV with the girl who mutates into a manikin on a train which gets close to the idea.

Yes, I agree that one should be able to fight unwanted conscription into prostitution by the state by arguing that the job poses health risks. Surely they can't force you to clean up nuclear waste sites to keep your benefits, for example?

Also, you could argue that it's sex discrimination to deny only women their full unemployment benefits for not taking a job in prostitution. Apparently there's no such thing as legal male prostitution in Germany.

The article, and apparently the law, says nothing about married women, either. If my husband and I are both unemployed, should I be threatened with losing some of my benefits if I turn down a prostitution gig? What if I'm a lesbian?

I'm looking forward to reading more articles about the German politicians wrestling (pun intended) with this issue!

Read the article carefully. Germany didn't exclude the sex industry because of the difficulty of wording the law. However, she has a few options.

She can claim that such work is violates her religious principles.
She can get a quickie marriage

She could make a claim on any of the following from the European Convention on Human Rights:

Art 1, §2 (1) Everyone's right to life shall be protected by law. (AIDS risk)
Art 5, §1 Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person. (violation of personal [bodily] security
Art 9, §1 Everyone has the right to ... manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance. (religious claim again)
Art 14 The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex... (discriminates, no men being sent to sell their bodies at brothels)

She could also go to the Bild. I hate those slime but they're arguably the most influential newspaper in Germany (based on readership) and this would let them run a week of "Muß IHRE Tochter in einem PUFF arbeiten?" headlines.

voff.

Read the article. It opens explaining that it's totally legal here (and in Sweden). It was tolerated for decades but it is as legal as -- and has the same status as -- all other normal jobs. Part of the reasoning for this was for the protecion of the girls, making sure they have health benefits and also to ensure tax is being paid.

Legal prostitution has a lot of personal and societal benefits.

voff.

Maybe this is a distortion of the truth. Maybe she was only asked to be a waitress/barmaid at this brothel. I doubt that she would have to work as a prostitute. That being said, and I am for leagilisation of prostitution, there seems to be bad sides of making it legal and equivalent to other forms of work.

BTW Baddoggie..might be wishful thinking on your part..but there is no legalized prostitution in Sweden..

Dammit, I meant the Netherlands. Sweden actually harshened its laws against prostitution which left me gobsmacked due to the stupidity of it. It was probably the result of prostitution being considered discriminating and demeaning.

voff.^

Thanks for the details on EU rights, baddoggie. I would think that Article 5 would take care of it. It seems like a human rights issue.

I think the "against my religion" business is a crock in this case. Why should a woman have to claim to be "religious" if she doesn't want to have sex with anyone with the money to pay for it? I think women should be allowed to refuse work in the "front" of a brothel, too, or in any other bar that might force them to work topless or scantily clothed.

I am in favor of legalized prostitution, too, if it means it's safer for the women, but with an 11.5% unemployment rate, anyone could open a brothel and force the government to play pimp by forcing unemployed women to choose between prostitution and reduced unemployment benefits. There's got to be a line drawn between making people work at McDonald's (for example) and making them work in a brothel.

Dammit, I meant the Netherlands. Sweden actually harshened its laws against prostitution which left me gobsmacked due to the stupidity of it. It was probably the result of prostitution being considered discriminating and demeaning.

voff.

Telegraph article

comments anyone ? I am speechless but wonder if it is scarmongering ...

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What counts then as sexual harassment at the work place? lol

I think it is just scaremongering, wait until some DIY lesbian from the Green party hears about it, and puts a subsequent stop to it!

Maybe me and "Roger" can get a job working together

Of course once I have worked out how to use him...maybe they do an Ausbildung

Hey now you have put me onto something, I'll try and get the teaching job.

"A Rabbit a day, helps you work, rest and play"

can just see the court case on the one side sexuelle Belästigung on the other Arbeitsverweigerung. The lawyers are rubbing their hands as I speak.

count me in aswell Bully. One times test person ready and willing to be abused. (Female students only though)

Would this ruling apply to men as well? I mean surely they can be prostitutes too. Okay they would roll over and go to sleep after every customer but that would mean they just have to work longer hours

Likes long hours, can work alone or as part of a team, references supplied on request.
Do I need to be fluent in German or just able to get my tongue around it??

Its a good thing I'm the one unemployed and not my wife has a job or we'd be moving back to Canada

Jobs for young ladies

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Didn't someone post something similar to this the other day? Men can work in the sex industry too. That's just blatent discrimination!!!

On a more serious note, as morals sadly decline and decline, perhaps my next business venture should be opening up a few "houses" as obviously the State is promoting it...

You really do sound like your Gran.

Jean-Pierre

Off course they can, and do...

In Cologne they converted a block of flats in the middle of a railway junction into a very large house of pleasure, called Pascha. I think that was going on 25 years ago, at any rate it was before I came here.

The Idea was to get the ladies off the street, although they apparently have one floor with male prostitutes (I don't know how many the women have...floors that is ).

An ex-colleage of mine used to be a regular there... Well, maybe he still is, haven't seen him in years... He always reckoned it was cheaper than keeping a GF/wife, and a lot less hassle

There's also something similar in Düsseldorf. You see it from the train as it approaches the station.. Big room numbers in the window, didn't notice any men hanging out the window, but the train was still going fairly fast and I couldn't find the communication cord, so I only got a glimpse

How on earth would they know if you are qualified for "that" or not.


And why only in the case of females...surely that can't be right.

..nothing surpises me anymore with this goverment ...welcome to The Banana Republic

I had a summer job at Mannesmann in Duisburg in my first year at University in 1964. My Dad organised it in conjunction with a regular exchange of apprentices which Consett Iron Co. had at the time. Mannesmann stuck us in a flat in Düsseldorf (on the ground floor of which was a pub where I made my aqaintance with Hannen Alt). One Sunday one of the apprentices came back with the News of the World and on page 2 was the 3" high headline - "Düsseldorf, City of Sin!". You could hardly see us for dust as there was a mass exodus out of the flat to go look at "Hinter dem Bahnhof".

I had the impression sometimes that it was pure luck that some of the trains didn't fall off the tracks as all the passengers crowded to the windows for a look. Many of the girls turned out to be from Martinique and I must say I don't think I've seen such a high density of good looking women / sq. m before or since! As far as I remember, only one of the apprentices dared (or could afford) to go in - I can't remember what the verdict was though.

...yeah sure Roy ...you can tell me

As a student, in those days I was even worse off than the apprentices!

I definitely expect that this is the newspapers having a field-day and changing the story around a little to create a headline. Nobody can be forced into prostitution in Germany. There are a lot of police activities going on right now to prevent this kind of thing, particularly to protect eastern european and asian women being brought into the country for that purpose. They probably wanted her to answer the phone and make appointments for the working girls or to strip (the beds) and make them again.

Although this could be a case of various liberal groups shooting themselves in the foot. I seem to remember there was a big fuss that prostitution should be recognised as an official trade with all its protections and liabilities ie Sex workers which is what happened.

Now that this is the case and prostitution is recognised officially AND the AA is obliged to fill vacant jobs and place unemployed persons in these vacant positions then oooops this is bound to happen.

I cant see it going through as the law bites itself in the tail what with it being in effect sexual exploitation but I will be interested to see what happens to it all.

"Nobody can be forced into prostitution in Germany."

Yes - but they can have their benefits reduced if they refuse a job.

A spokewomen for a job centre in Hamburg stated (in response to questions about this) that "nobody would be forced to do anything immoral".

The snag is, from a legal standpoint, prostitution is no longer immoral. Quite sensibly, the German government decriminalised prostitution to reduce people trafficking and the involvement of organised crime.

However, if a brothel requests people to be sent for interview to work as prostitutes and a job centre says they can't force anyone to go because it is immoral, the brothel can sue the job centre.

The government needs to issue guidelines and a list of jobs, the refusal of which would not see a reduction in benefits.

Another example of a controversial job could be to send a Muslim or Jew to work in a factory handling pork.

But I'm sure some civil rights lawyers will be licking their lips right now at the prospect of taking this issue to court on her behalf.

By the way...

It was not true.