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Woman refuses to be prostitute, loses unemployment benefits

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Post subject: Woman refuses to be prostitute, loses unemployment benefits
Posted: Sat 19 Feb , 2005 3:04 pm
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I think I may be missing some obvious "pro" here, but for now, I have no comments and just feel sad. Thought it belonged in this forum more than any other.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... germ30.xml
Quote:
'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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Jnyusa
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Posted: Sat 19 Feb , 2005 4:46 pm
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Well, there you have it. Capitalism at its finest.

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Sunsilver
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Posted: Sat 19 Feb , 2005 5:39 pm
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[SHUDDER]

SOOOO glad that Canada has never seriously considered legalizing prostitution! What a horrible can of worms it has opened up!


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truehobbit
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Posted: Sat 19 Feb , 2005 5:50 pm
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Hehe, well said, Jny! :D

On the other hand - it's a British newspaper - 'nuff said! ;)

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Lidless
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Posted: Sat 19 Feb , 2005 7:15 pm
Als u het leven te ernstig neemt, mist u de betekenis.
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The unemployed spend all their day in bed. I don't see that much of a difference.

Seriously though, there must be an ethical boundary here. I presume on religious grounds there are certain jobs one can be exempt from - a Jewish person working in a pork factory, a Catholic working at a crematorium etc.

Surely this woman can claim exemption if she were to say she is a Christian and doesn't believe in sex before marriage. There must be an exemption there.

I don't think we've heard the whole story yet. The decision will be reversed if no exemption can be made at the present time. Public pressure will force it.

What is more interesting is the case where there are personal moral issues at work that do not come from religion, such as a vegetarian working at a slaughterhouse.

It's always a balancing act by authorities, allowing exemptions to things based on beliefs because these exemptions are abused by people who simply don't want to do something.

I remember the hue and cry from Sikhs regarding having to wear crash helmets on motorbikes. Eventually they got their way, of course.

Slowly but surely, common sense and respect tends to prevail. It's in cases like this, fundamental cases of beliefs, that public pressure normally wins out.

From Estel:
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It's tantamount to legal and governmentally-approved rape, and ultimately a civilized society will not tolerate it.
I concur.

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Meneltarma
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Posted: Sat 19 Feb , 2005 9:43 pm
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Sunsilver wrote:

SOOOO glad that Canada has never seriously considered legalizing prostitution! What a horrible can of worms it has opened up!
But do you think that prostitution should never be legalised just because of cases like this?


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*E*V*E*N*S*T*A*R*
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Posted: Sat 19 Feb , 2005 10:18 pm
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Aren't there like a million others that would suggest it shouldn't be?




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truehobbit
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Posted: Sat 19 Feb , 2005 10:26 pm
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TheLidlessEyes wrote:
Estel wrote:
It's tantamount to legal and governmentally-approved rape, and ultimately a civilized society will not tolerate it.
I concur.
Where did you take the quote from? :scratch

Um, like I said, this is a British paper reporting on a German case - surely you don't take the things they say at face-value? ;)
(The article isn't lying, but it does present facts in a rather suggestive way, IMO.)

There is something there, however:
This lawyer, Garweg, has raised the issue theoretically. And theoretically she's right.
I hadn't heard of the case in the news, so I looked it up online and found it mentioned in the "Standard" and the "taz" - both not the most neutral sources, so I don't rightly know what to make of it.

Thing is, we've had a reform in unemployment benefits regulations, that is rather restrictive for the victims of unemployment. The idea of the reform is to save money (of course) and make sure that unemployed people don't choose to stay unemployed rather than taking a job they are offered.
Before, for example, you could say: that's not the kind of job I'm trained to do and be excused. This possibility is now severely limited.
If you refuse a suitable offer, your unemployment aids will be cut.

With prostitution a legal job it is of course technically possible to say this is a job you can do, so take it or have your dole cut. However, I'm pretty sure that rights of the individual and ethical values still persist.
The question is, is it up to the bureaucracy to decide, or are there any rules that prescribe the keeping of those rights and values - the German newspapers I checked made it sound like it was the former. I thought that was highly reprehensible. It seems it really is up to the clerk to look into the job offer and decide whether it's appropriate or not.

So, the article from the telegraph here, though twisting things a bit by making it look as if that was now common practice, still says (though a bit hidden) that what they are talking about is a flaw in the legal regulations that might enable such practices.

It's a good thing to have that flaw pointed out - I do hope they come up with some regulations to prevent such cases pronto!

But basically, I think making prostitution legal is not a bad thing. I think it's a totally disgusting thing, but that won't make it go away. So, having it a disgusting and criminal thing would be even worse, and would penalise the prostitutes more than the people who mainly profit from the trade when it is a crime.

Btw - isn't it interesting that no one seems to have thought of the same possibility for unemployed men?

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Lidless
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Posted: Sat 19 Feb , 2005 11:07 pm
Als u het leven te ernstig neemt, mist u de betekenis.
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truehobbit wrote:
TheLidlessEyes wrote:
Estel wrote:
It's tantamount to legal and governmentally-approved rape, and ultimately a civilized society will not tolerate it.
I concur.
Where did you take the quote from? :scratch
From across the breakfast table.

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Impenitent
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Posted: Sun 20 Feb , 2005 12:05 am
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Horrifies me!

A couple of quick comments (son is harrassing me for breakfast):

I've always felt ambivalent about the legalisation of prostitution (I recall a TORC thread, I think it was Demo's) because I consider that prostitution does terrible things to the bodies and spirit of the women (mainly) who become involved in the industry - and that's not because of religious issues. Except for a small, small minority of women, those who do become involved do so from desperation - they have no economic alternatives for keeping body and soul together.

I agree that criminalising prostitution punishes women who are already victims of society's economic forces much more than it punishes those who profit from it - but legalising it means that we, as a society, condone the degradation of the spirit that they suffer. And this seems to be a further step - not only to condone it but to force it.

I cannot see how a society that claims to respect personal freedoms can possibly let such a thing stand.

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Eruname
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Posted: Sun 20 Feb , 2005 12:07 am
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truehobbit wrote:
Um, like I said, this is a British paper reporting on a German case - surely you don't take the things they say at face-value? ;)
Why not? European papers report on America all the time and people seem to take that at face value. What's the difference?
Quote:
(The article isn't lying, but it does present facts in a rather suggestive way, IMO.)
I think that statement describes practically all newspaper articles around the world.
Quote:
So, the article from the telegraph here, though twisting things a bit by making it look as if that was now common practice, still says (though a bit hidden) that what they are talking about is a flaw in the legal regulations that might enable such practices.
I didn't get the impression that this was common practice but that it was something that very well could happen more than once if the "law" was enforced. Like you said, it's good to have the flaw pointed out so this can be fixed immediately.

I'm quite surprised that this occurred. One would think that it was common sense that you couldn't force a person into the sex industry. I honestly don't see how there can be any arguement about it whatsoever and I hope that the people in charge come to their senses very quickly.
Quote:
But basically, I think making prostitution legal is not a bad thing. I think it's a totally disgusting thing, but that won't make it go away. So, having it a disgusting and criminal thing would be even worse, and would penalise the prostitutes more than the people who mainly profit from the trade when it is a crime.
I agree with you. It's better to regulate it and make it safe than try to ban it. It's one of the world's oldest professions and I don't get how some people think they can stop it.

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Sun 20 Feb , 2005 4:48 am
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I have the perfect solution.

The government employment agencies must be able to send both men and women on these interviews, and if the brothel discriminates on the basis of gender they lose their right to use the govt agency. Presumably gender discrimination is just as illegal as turning down a job. And really, what qualifications do you need for a job like that? I think a few thousand Turkish gastarbeiters descending on the brothels will turn the situation around pretty quickly.

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Meneltarma
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Posted: Sun 20 Feb , 2005 5:06 am
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Jny! *snort* :D

Society is not going to let the government force a woman into prostitution, and this case has been widely publicised. (I've read about it at least three times on various blogs)
And I think legalising prostitution is necessary, no matter how much the prospect upsets people. Yes, the majority of these women are forced into it by circumstance, and that's horrible. But trying to get rid of it hasn never worked. Legalising and regulating the profession is the only way to provide any kind of security for them. The people who suffer most when prostitution is illegal are the prostitutes themselves, not the people taking advantage of them. And what about women (I'm sure there aren't many, but what do I know?) who willingly take up this profession? Do we have any right to tell them what to do with their bodies?
:neutral:


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Berhael
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Posted: Sun 20 Feb , 2005 1:41 pm
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It would be good if Demo could give us some figures; I think he interviewed prostitutes for his lobby work in NZ, and might know about percentages of women taking it up voluntarily.

I agree that legalisation and regulation are necessary. It's a grim job, but so are abattoirs. morgues or sewage works, for instance. Some dignity and security should be available for anyone earning a living.


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MariaHobbit
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It's an urban legend.

Check snopes: http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/brothel.asp

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truehobbit wrote:
Um, like I said, this is a British paper reporting on a German case - surely you don't take the things they say at face-value? ;)
(The article isn't lying, but it does present facts in a rather suggestive way, IMO.)
That's twice you mentioned it was a British paper; the implication is that British newspapers lie or are such poor sources for information.

Why the assumption, and do you really take German papers as gospel ;)

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Jnyusa
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MariaH - what a relief to read the debunking. So this is another story, like the one about forced abortions in China, making the rounds of conservative wacko liar websites?

(I'm trying to be fair and balanced.)

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MariaHobbit
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Well, that depends on if you trust Snopes or not, doesn't it??? ;)

I first looked this up a few weeks ago, when I first heard this story, and at that time it's status was "still undetermined" meaning they couldn't prove if it was true or false. This time, as you saw, they are sure that it is false.

Is the forced abortions in China false? I'd read that in a Tom Clancy novel and was appalled-- did he mess up on his homework then? He's usually pretty careful.

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truehobbit
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Posted: Mon 21 Feb , 2005 12:57 am
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Dindraug wrote:
truehobbit wrote:
Um, like I said, this is a British paper reporting on a German case - surely you don't take the things they say at face-value? ;)
(The article isn't lying, but it does present facts in a rather suggestive way, IMO.)
That's twice you mentioned it was a British paper; the implication is that British newspapers lie or are such poor sources for information.

Why the assumption, and do you really take German papers as gospel ;)
I said it twice because no one responded to the first time I said it, so I assumed the innuendo hadn't been understood.

It's not that British newspapers lie as such - although they are notoriously biased, seeing that they are for the most part either tabloids or belong to Mr Murdoch, or both. ;)

The point here, however, is the well-known problem the British press has with Germany. So, when it comes to reporting something negative about Germany, I think there's no doubt a British newspaper makes the most of it.
I would like to add, however, that not only did I NOT say that British newspapers are lying, on the contrary, I said explicitly: "The article isn't lying"

And if anyone had read my post carefully - looks like people were too shocked with the news and only responded to the original ariticle :roll: - they'd have seen that I tried to find the sources, and only found a German and an Austrian daily, both of which I stated to be well known as biased (and by implication of course unreliable).
(So much for my taking German papers as gospel. ;) )

lidless, LOL, you'd need to give the source for your quotes - I was looking the thread up and down, trying to see if I'd somehow missed a post of Estel's :P

Maria, thanks for posting that article - Jude just gave me the same link when we talked on IM, and I had meant to post it here. :D

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Impenitent
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Posted: Mon 21 Feb , 2005 1:39 am
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According to a Chinese friend who grew up in Beijing and still has family in china, there were forced abortions in China but not on the scale that headlines screamed at us in the west. From what he says, it was a more ad hoc process that depended alot on the zealousness and maliciousness of the local authorities.

As to legalising/decriminalising prostitution - that has happened in Melbourne and there are many legal brothels through the city and suburbs.

Can't say it is without problems: - getting local planning approval is difficult for the operators as local authorities will do just about anything they can to prevent them.

And the women who work in the regulated venues do have benefits not available to street workers - health, safety, hygiene etc are all better (not sure about sickness benefits and holiday leave though - and I'm not being facetious, as all other workers are entitled to these - just don't know whether sex workers are).

But you know, the women who get into the brothels tend to be the smarter, more savvy women - the women, in fact, who would probably fare better that their colleagues in any case.

And the brothels have not removed the problem on the street, where the women are the most vulnerable and at risk - the ones who are truly desperate and probably under age.

The ones who will ALWAYS be the most exploited and at risk.

That's my basic problem with legalising/decriminalising prostitution - the authorities can declare that they've looked after the sex workers and the industry is regulated and sweep away the fact that there are new, young victims of society's ills on the street every day.

I hate that.

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