Germany lowers woman's unemployment because refuses prostitution job

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."