January 30, 2005

Taking Out the Eurotrash

As Stan Marsh once asked, "Dude, what the f*** is wrong with German people?"

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.

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.

Part of me keeps thinking this can't be real, but it certainly seems to be. Maybe it is all part of a plot to reduce the unemployment levels by getting women out of the job market and back to the three K's (Kirche, Kueche, Kinder). Or is it meant to encourage the Islamists currently in Germany to leave immediately? Or both? I mean, no one can propose something this preposterous without some colossally stupid reasons driving them.

How did Germany's society find itself suddenly in the ditch instead of cruising comfortably down the Autobahn?

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."

Unbelievable.

Posted by Charles Austin at January 30, 2005 10:47 PM
Comments

So the German government decided to get into the pimping business? And the United States is constantly criticized for not being more like Europe? I guess we have such outdated bourgeois ideas such as respect for women.

Posted by: Jon at 09:10 AM

Interesting. Jon's comment makes me wonder: Would men be forced to do the same? One presumes that male prostitution has also been legalized. If Hans is forced to start doing... Franz, I think this law will disappear pretty quickly.

Posted by: Tanya at 01:53 PM

Surely there's some sort of gender-discrimination laws in Germany, screening applicants for gender would be sexist.

The Law of Unintended Consequences once again delivers comedic gold.

Posted by: Liam at 07:42 PM

Yet another illustration that human history can be summed up as folks saying, "What can it hurt?", followed sometime later by, "How was I supposed to know?"

Posted by: Jon at 09:27 AM

Liam, evidently the bureaucrats knew that this was a possible outcome so it is not an "unintended" consequence.

This happens because the Euro form of socialism empowered moronic bureaucrats over the people.

Posted by: Robin Roberts at 10:35 PM