Unemployment benefits cut for turning down prostitution?

[mikehendo]

http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/ ... germ30.xml

Apparently in Germany, an unemployed woman can have her unemployment benefits cut if she refuses to take up a life of prostitution if the offer is made.

[Kilgamayan]

She still gets a year before she loses them.

States only give 6 months.

[Khana]

That is... that's... ugh! I'm at a loss for words! I knew prostitution was legalized, but not that they were forcing women into these jobs. Hopefully with enough attention being drawn to this, the government will have to revoke their decision. This is just disgusting!

[Deacon]

What's the problem? If prostitution is a perfectly legal and viable job, as many people on this forum seem to think, and a slot is open in a business that's willing to hire them, then...what's wrong? Just because it may not be her ideal job, she should get to suckle at the German government's teat indefinitely?

Also, why aren't these topics (Fat Grade, this one, etc) being placed in PACE where they belong?

[Dreamer]

Probably because you don't have an administrator's gavel, deac.

This also seems wrong to me. I mean, there are risks with every job, but doesn't this seem a little riskier than a normal job? Disease wise, I mean? And even concerning violence.

But, well... It's still sex. Not just sex. Would they say this to an 18 year old unemployed virgin? Won't this result in forcing people into the sex industry? If your unemployment would be cut to an unsurvivable level, who would choose homelessness...living on the streets... to working in the sex industry? Maybe it's time for Germany to go back to the drawing board and find a way to differentiate the sex industry from bars and nightclubs.
Is this the final nail in the coffin of all that is sacred?

[vixendrop]

I agree completely that this is just disgusting! I read about this a couple days ago and I'm still outraged! Sex is not *just sex* to the majority of people... it's something special and should be given only to who YOU chose (and if you CHOSE to sell your body then fine)... not who the government decides. My guess is those in the government upholding this horrible loophole have never had their mothers, sisters, or daughters in this position. (no pun intended) Maybe they'd feel differently then if it was alittle closer to home.
Sick sick sick.

[Dreamer]

I would have expected something like this from the French. But the Germans?

[Blaze]

It's definitely not right. People can be forced to work in high-risk environments, but not GUARENTEED risk environments. Perhaps made to work in a strip club or something... but not where the sexual promiscuity is GUARENTEED.

[Imagine]

....

[Tasty Biscuit Toothpaste]

Do brothel owners have access to the database of jobseekers in Nevada, where prositiution is legal? If so, the same thing could easily happen there.

[vixendrop]

Scary thought.

[TopCat]

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jh ... EnoughNews

since reuters will kill this article in like a week, i've gotta quote the important parts. the "Luft" referred to is "Molly Luft", this is mentioned earlier in the article but i'm not pasting the whole thing.

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.

Speculation has grown over recent weeks that Germany's new welfare reforms, obliging the long-term unemployed to take any available job or risk losing their benefits, could lead to women being offered jobs in the sex industry.

"One can't expect everyone to be prepared to work in the sex industry," Luft said. "Plus if people aren't very attractive they aren't going to make much money," she added.

[Blaze]

Yes, not mention it, but they may still cut the benefits over it.

[Rileyrat]

The ironc part is, this is the govn. trying to impose morals on the public. Irony comes in when you realize they are doing in the reverse of most governments. People tend to only have a problem with this moral delima when it conflicts with thier morals. I garuntee that the majority of our church going public wouldn't have a problem with a "You must go to church." law. Personally I have problems with any law or action that infringes on my, or anyones, free will. The only time I see a law prohibiting free will fit is when the persons free will inhibits or harms another person.

[Nekra]

this should have been in politics, which is why i posted the same thing a few hours after, the article is a retranslation, garbled, blah blah blah, of a theoretical situation. No has yet to loose their benefits because they refused to work in a sex industry, but under their present legal system they could. doesn't mean that they will.