Since it's now come up twice today ...

[unixronin]

...I thought I'd mention this:  Under German law legalizing prostitution, German women can lose unemployment benefits if they refuse to accept employment as a prostitute or other sex-industry worker.  I think someone rather missed the point here -- we're back to shades and echoes of "All that is not forbidden is mandatory."

Personally, I see no valid medical or ethical reason why prostitution, with appropriate public-health precautions, should be illegal in and of itself.  However, we have long had words specifically for people who force women into prostitution against their will; those words include pimp and panderer.  They're generally not considered complimentary.

So why is the German government now pimping unemployed German women?

Let me be 100% clear on this, I'm all in favor of welfare reform that requires those who are unemployed but able to work to find work if they can.  However, under no circumstances should any such program force anyone to take an unusually hazardous job (firefighting, say, or explosive ordnance disposal, or hazmat cleanup) or one that is legitimately morally repugnant to them.

I wonder if the German government would change its position on this matter if the wives and daughters of German politicians were required to take employment, against their will, as prostitutes or strippers?

Comments

[jmkelly.livejournal.com]

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

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

So noted. This, at least, does appear to throw doubt on the veracity of the report.

Any native German speakers able to trace the Tageszeitung reference and clarify?

[alienor77310.livejournal.com]

A quick reading of said article shows nothing concerning pressing women into prostitution. In fact, the interviewed unemployment agency manager says that they don't deal with those job offers, as "there are other channels for this". They'd even accept it if someone refused a barkeep job in a brothel.

You might also want to read this (http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=664273). Apparently, the question today is whether those jobs should be offered along with others in unemployment agencies. And again, the interviewee for the unemployment agencies says that there is no obligation to accept them.

The strangest thing for me is the reactions to the original article: many remarks saying that this was the result of a socialist-run system, as compared to my own euro-pinko reaction that this was the perfect example of how the market-economy was gaining on all welfare systems.