Legendary German Job Centre
Flicking thro the Metro this morning, I found a rather worrying piece of news for unemployed German women.
The basis of the story is that a jobless waitress is set to lose her unemployment benefit because she refused to take a job offered to her. Thats fair enough, I hear you say.
Well, no, it's not really, as the job she turned down was as a prostitute in a brothel.
Apparently she considered suing the job centre in Berlin, but a court told her the centre had not broken the law. Basically, since Germany made prostitution legal 2 years ago, job centres "must treat employers looking for a prostitute in the same way as those looking for a dental nurse".
This certainly raises issues over legalising prostitution in this country – as I think is being considered in (Leeds/Liverpool?).
Whatever happens lets hope it remains restricted to women.
31 Jan 2005 10:28
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[Skip to the latest comment]Oh my god! That's so harsh. I really really hope that isn't true.
31 Jan 2005, 13:08
I suspect it isn't, but I'll check with my German girlfriend this evening. I had a quick scout around on the web and although this story appeared on a number of different sites they were all reprints of the same original article. Given that the Metro is published by the same people who bring you the Daily Mail I wouldn't put too much faith in the journalistic integrity…
31 Jan 2005, 14:25
"Whatever happens lets hope it remains restricted to women." —–Why?
31 Jan 2005, 14:49
Sarah
Yes, i remain confused about that little snippet of opinion. I hope it's not a nice little bit of sexism rearing it's ugly head.
31 Jan 2005, 15:15
Yeah, didn't notice the wording of that. I am going to optimistically hope he meant "just this one woman".
31 Jan 2005, 15:22
People, people, people. There's two things that I feel need to be said here.
Firstly, to be fair the actual article says that the 25 year old "faces having her unemployment benefit cut" and the considered suing the job centre that "slashed her income support". Probably deliberately vague to sensationalise the story, but generally true nonetheless. My German housemate didn't seem too surprised to hear about it and confirmed to another mate that prostitution is indeed legal in Germany.
On a second, perhaps more important note, I was in no way meaning to offend by my closing comment. I was simply stating that as long as my chances of facing this issue are zilch currently, I'm quite happy not to be a woman. In no way was I saying that this is all well and good. I don't think prostitution should be legalised here, (though exploitation of women is not the only reason and anyway, some women end up in, or stay in prostitution because they like it or at least think they like it).
Thanks for reading, I just felt that eeded to be said.
31 Jan 2005, 16:58
Don't worry, I'm sure no one really thought you meant it in the bad way :)
31 Jan 2005, 21:08
Your German housemate may not have been too surprised but my German girlfriend was when I asked her about this last night. Prostitution is not legal in Germany, at least not to the extent where it could be considered just a job like any other and benefits cut for not accepting such a position. She'd also heard nothing about the story, which is odd as normally a big story hits domestic newspapers first and is then picked up by the international press.
01 Feb 2005, 09:53
that nigga
i would mean it in that way. hopefully there will be no man whores in the UK. That would be a bad thing.
10 Mar 2005, 21:16
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