UPDATE (Feb 1): There’s reason to doubt this story is true. Check out this post for details.
Original post is below the fold.
From The Telegraph (hat tip: Spicy):
‘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.
Here’s the link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/30/wgerm30.xml
So what’s the problem? Isn’t this sort of thing the logical consequence of a universal welfare state?
One wonders if men “get” to do these same jobs. Or if they are even pushed into domestic jobs such as housecleaning.
I remember reading a Katha Pollitt article where she skewered formerly high-paid, male IT execs who were bitching about working lowly cashiering jobs at the Gap after losing their jobs. She thought it was odd that people thought it was good enough for welfare reciepients, but that it was apparently beneath these men.
But yes, I think it’s demeaning to push women into sex work. And pushing someone to take a job as a prostitute is rape, IMO.
Robert says:
“So what’s the problem? Isn’t this sort of thing the logical consequence of a universal welfare state?”
Ahh, the good old sweeping generalization. Just take one obvious glitch that is tangentially related to what you want to slander, remove all nuance and use it as the broadest brush possible to tar the offending idea. I guess I can just declare capitalism intellectually bankrupt because of the Great Depression now.
Seriously Robert, I hope you were just joking.
“Isn’t this sort of thing the logical consequence of a universal welfare state?”
Um, how? Is there some rule that welfare states automatically HAVE to force welfare recipients to take any private-sector job that’s available?
Why, then, did we need welfare “reform” to make that the case?
Keep in mind that laws based on a limited form of morality might well re-exclude prostitution—but would say nothing about forcing the uenemployed to take jobs that (otherwise) endangered their mental or physical health. Someone prone to RSI, and all that’s on the board is data entry? Tough shit. Have a hard time talking to strangers, and all they can find is telemarketing? Suck it up.
Those who (rightly) insist this isn’t nearly so bad as being forced into sex work are missing my point: the real problem, here, isn’t the legalization of the sex industry. The real problem, here, is the unintended but rather foreseeable consequences of “get tough” welfare legislation designed to kick the “slackers” off the unemployment rolls—in the most dunderheaded and inhuman fashion possible, since, as we all know, slackers don’t deserve understanding, compassion, or grace of any sort to get themselves back in order. —Robert: it is, perhaps, the logical consequence, if you let idiots line it all out for you. I know your party has a nasty habit of giving power to your idiots; us, not so much. So no. No, I’d have to say you’re utterly without a point there.
Well, I found the Pollitt article, which is here.
These overpaid IT men could have made far more than a $10 an hour cashiers wage if they’d just taken up stripping or hooking.
/sarcasm
If prostitution is the result of the welfare state, then what of the fact that most whores work for cash only? No welfare checks for prostitutes, my friends.
Nah, I have trust enough in the contemporary German government to sort this mess out. At least I hope they will, as I’m considering the possibility of someday moving to Berlin.
One thing to understand is that unemployment in Germany is a huge problem. The law on the books is actually a clever idea, but the fact that they couldn’t codify exceptions into the program for something like prostitution is unbelievably stupid. Almost as stupid as thinking this is an inevitability in a “welfare state.” But then others have done a sufficient job of calling him on that, so yay.
Kip, there is no way to run a social welfare system over the long term without obliging people to do work they are able to do; otherwise, people will run out the clock on their benefits, creating work gaps and totally undermining the system’s long-term viability. Requiring unemployed people to take available jobs is hardly unreasonable, nor is it an anti-slacker measure; it’s a pro-work measure, essential to cultivating a culture where there is an expectation that people will work when they are able.
Europe has realized this; with its aging population and sub-replacement birth rate, it has no choice but to realize this. And as you note, the results for some individuals range from irritating (take this crappy data entry job and risk RSI) to absolutely horrifying (sell your body or starve).
Bean is right; advocates for women did point out this (and similar) possible consequence of legalizing prostitution, and were ignored or laughed at. Similarly, advocates for freedom did (and do) point out that universal state power will inevitably end up crushing individual lives, when their choices don’t mesh with the state’s. (Side note, whether unemployment benefits are welfare or not depend on how they are paid for. In Germany they are basically welfare, to the best of my knowledge. In the US they have a welfare component but are mostly done on an insurance model.)
I think this outcome is dreadful, but I also think that it is a structural feature of a universal welfare state, such as Germany has. The importance of individual choice is of necessity deprecated in such a system; there’s no way around it. Note that the system was deprecating individual choices before prostitution was legalized; sex workers weren’t able to qualify for social benefits because they didn’t have “real jobs” according to the state.
It’s a logical, if unintentional, consequence of the system’s very design. Security + Freedom = 1; weight your variables according to preference.
Raznor, on what basis would you carve out an exception for prostitution? If not prostitution, why not bartending? Why not phone sex work? Why not any number of jobs that might conflict with someone’s values or wishes?
Requiring unemployed people to take available jobs is hardly unreasonable
It is unreasonable to expect unemployed people to take any available job or immediately risk losing unemployment benefits.
I guess the German government has solved the issue of finding medical-research subjects, though.
It is unreasonable to expect unemployed people to take any available job or immediately risk losing unemployment benefits.
They give people a year before requiring work. There’s no immediate about it.
In a country where more than ten percent of the civilian labor force is out of work and drawing benefits, they simply can’t afford not to make people work when there are open jobs.
Something went wrong with the link to the Katha Pollitt, & I couldn’t find it myself — do you mind reposting it, perhaps just the url instead of a link? Thanks. I’ve noticed a few issues with links in comments here recently, not sure why.
I notice, though, that it’s women who will be forced to become prostitutes– not men, despite the fact that men can, and do, do such ‘work’. I really wonder if the agency would force an unemployed male IT professional to, say, work for a man-on-man phone sex line, or give blowjobs for 20 bucks a throw.
The main problem with arguing that prostitution is a job like any other is that you’ve got to ignore the fact that it’s often either slavery or something very close to it. Most prostitutes are stuck with it because they cannot do anything else (addiction, abject poverty) or because they’re controlled by the mob. This bit of nastiness is, of course, just some mean-spirited smuck at the UI office having a bit of fun with this woman, but the notion that the government will become a pimp is a bit hard to deal with.
There’s not a whole lot of women who are clamoring to become hookers, after all.
It isn’t true, it’s a scare story put about by social conservatives to try to discredit the decriminalisation of sex workers.
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=664273
I’m also puzzled as to what the alternative is. No social safety net means more people flat-out starving and/or going into crime or prostitution. There was no shortage of prostitutes in nineteenth-century London, just as there is no shortage of prostitutes in modern-day Third World nations where government benefits for the poor are minimal or non-existent.
How is a woman who is asked to choose between prostituting herself or losing her welfare/unemployment benefits any worse off than a woman who has to prostitute herself to survive because there ARE no such benefits? Seems to me Robert is putting the cart before the horse.
Why can’t an exemption for prostition be framed as a health concern? Properly done, it could exclude things like RSI, if that’s an issue. Like so — oh, caveat before I begin: I don’t know what kinds of regulations are placed on German prostitution. Please feel free to educate me if my ignorance starts showing. Ok, onwards —
1. Sexual contact carries with it the risk of transmitting diseases, including HIV/AIDS.
2. A prostitute cannot determine whether her/his client is disease-free.
3. No method of protection, other than abstinence, is 100% effective in preventing STDs.
4. As some STDs, including HIV/AIDS, have life-altering, long-term health effects, including death, preventing the spread of STDs in in the national interests.
5. Therefore, no person should be forced by the state to risk exposure to STDs.
No?
I think more attention needs to be paid to the fact that men simply won’t be forced to dispense blow jobs or other services to other men. I’d bet that howls of outrage would arise at the mere thought. Women might be sexual objects, but one can never, ever, ever so much as hint at the same fate for men.
I’m not sure how Alison’s linked article disproves the original, but I have no caffiene in my blood system so forgive me.
It certainly is an interesting complication to the legalization of prostitution. If this sort of thing is to stay legal and the EI is to stay distributed as it is now in Germany, they’ll have to somehow more clearly mark what “field” a job is in… and that means not lumping phone-sex in with a standard call center, amoungst other things. I mean seriously, they’ll warn you in a job description that you have to do heavy lifting or be exposed to poor air quality, apparently we now need a warning for semen contact, sex talk and alcohol distribution.
Not sure which would be more degrading, the standard help desk or the phone sex ;-)
Key paragraphs from Alison’s article:
A spokesman for the Federal Labour Office said that if job seekers said they were prepared to work as, for example, dancers in strip bars, advisers could put them in touch with any suitable employers, but vacancies would not be displayed in job centres.
He also stressed job centres would not look for prostitutes on behalf of brothels, nor offer sex industry jobs to people who hadn’t specifically mentioned it as an area of interest.
So her article and Amp’s article can’t both be true.
Wookie said ‘I’m not sure how Alison’s linked article disproves the original.’
(exotic dancing) vacancies would not be displayed in job centres… job centres would not look for prostitutes… employment agencies would not offer sex industry jobs to people who hadn’t specifically mentioned it as an area of interest.
How much clearer can it be? Fundamentally they don’t even offer that kind of work, let alone coerce people into it.
Furthermore Germany has special laws about sex work, including a prohibition of coering people into sex work, and provision that sex workers can quite at any time for any reason, without working (for example) a period of notice. However, I don’t have a handy link to that.
um, I meant to type ‘they can quit at any time’ and ‘laws forbid coercing people’ – perhaps there is more than one person short of caffeine
Snopes also seems skeptical as to the veracity of such claims.
I think Snopes may have the right attitude on this. “Wait and see, until we hear it from some German languge source”
relevant? you tell me.
regular writer for the same newspaper writes negatively on welfare in England.
this same paper carries a story about some horrid, unconscienable thing perpetrated by the Germany’s welfare system, one that is much more comprehensive and protective than the British one.
and that’s just the very first link you get under British Welfare State. I’d bet further searching in the Telegraph’s archives would reveal a general leaning right, at least on the issue of goverment assistance.
Here’s the url to the Katha Pollitt article. It’s pretty good:
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml%3Fi=20030505&s=pollitt
I’ll need better evidence than the word of a Federal Labor government office saying no women are coerced into prostitution. Why would it be different in Germany than in other places around the world where legalization and not-Swedish decriminalization?
In Vancouver BC, where prostitution is deciminalized, a pregnant woman trying to leave her abusive husband was told by a social worker that she should enter the sex industry, and I mention this one case of many because I read about it just this weekend.
I think fromaway asks the million dollar question: “How is a woman who is asked to choose between prostituting herself or losing her welfare/unemployment benefits any worse off than a woman who has to prostitute herself to survive because there ARE no such benefits?”
Fundamentally they don’t even offer that kind of work, let alone coerce people into it.
The impression I got from the original article is that the agency that was the brothel contacted the lady in question themselves after viewing her profile on some . And I don’t think it’s out of reach (even by Canadian laws) that if you are offered a legal job, that you can be “forced” to take it, to some extent. Certainly if you don’t take it you’d better be prepared to defend your position to some very critical people in charge of wether or not you get another cheque. And not all job centers, in my experience, are goverment funded/controlled.
So I don’t think the two articles are contradictory, but I do think there is enough contradiction to want to know more.
In a country where more than ten percent of the civilian labor force is out of work and drawing benefits, they simply can’t afford not to make people work when there are open jobs.
Isn’t the problem the 10% unemployment rate? It should be only, what, 5%?
[Cross posted at Feministing & PFH]:
This has now been officially debunked as Repug. propaganda: Snopes.com has it:
[http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/brothel.asp] as well as Sadly, No:[Sadlyno.com]
[http://sadlyno.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/1190].
Plenty of European & social welfare bashing just for the fun of it, and for appealing to the women hating lovelies out there!
[No, that’s not my real email]
VJ, both Amp and I posted updates/clarifications regarding this, long before your comment. As did Feministing.
I think fromaway asks the million dollar question
And I apologise for the horrible grammar in that question. :)
Grammar, schmammer, I just want some people to address your fine observation.
We as a society hold on tightly to the thought that the women (and transgendereds) for rent in the back of our local weeklies are in a completely different situation than this German woman. We need to tell ourselves they’re not prostituting because there are no institutionalized benefits for starving, homeless young women in the USA, because if we collectively didn’t believe that then we would be as outraged about their economic coercion into prostitution for survival as we are about this German woman’s.
Or is that not the difference that matters? Is the difference that matters not that women are coerced into prostitution (duh), but that middle class women working conventional jobs like waitressing might be coerced into prostitution? Does that scare people who ordinarily don’t pay much attention to how poverty-stricken women are regularly coerced into prostitution?
The reason that unemployment benefits were fought for, and won, was to allow workers a measure of independence. The point was precisely that unemployment shouldn’t mean desperation, so workers *won’t* be forced to take any available job at any wage.
Forcing a worker to take a specific job or lose unemployment benefits is completely antithetical to the original intention of unemployment benefits.