Is this what would happen if brothels were legalised here?

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.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/30/wgerm30.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/01/30/ixworld.html

That is a most scary story secrets. Talk about dictating how women live their lives, how can they possibly force a woman into the sex industry!! It is outrageous.

As for you question, I don't know if it could happen here as the Human Rights, politically correct, nanny staters would be up in arms straight away.

Part of the problem might lie in what the lawyer in your linked article said - that prostitution is not immoral because the regulations say so.

"Zese rules are gut because zey tell you vat to zink!!!"

No way Hose - would that happen here - legalised or not! I would suggest it would be against basic Human Rights principles - and quite frankly I don't beleive that story!

It doesn't say that the job was actually prostitution though, it could have been working as a barmaid.

Even so, it's a bit rich!

You cannot be serious!!! :ohmy:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200502/s1293331.htm

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 had not specifically mentioned it as an area of interest.

Oh this story is ridiculous!

I'm pretty sure it wouldn't happen over here. Sure, we have the rule which states that people on unemployment benefit have to be seen actively looking for work, but such people do have the right to specify jobs which, for whatever reason, are unsuitable for them. E.g. A muslim would have the right to refuse to apply for a job which refused them time off to visit a Mosque or which expected them to handle pork. And if I were unemployed I would be quite within my rights to refuse to apply for a job as say, an artists model, on the basis that I didn't want to pose nude.

If an employment agency over here refused benefits on that basis, as someone else point out, the PC brigade would be lobbying till Kindgom come. And what do think the Daily Mail would have to say about it!!!! :laugh: they'd be full of po-faced outrage and puckered lips, and for once, I'd agree with them.

Nah - even if prostitution were legalised over here, I couldn't see it ever getting to the stage where people were expected to compromise moral or ethical principles in order to take the job offered.

I think the story is just scare mongering.

I used to live in Germany and thought there attitude was a lot better than ares. They used to have areas that were the red light distracts and Brothels were legal and had to be licenced.

Prostitutes arn't going to go away. Brothels at least get it off the street, and provides some sort of safeguards to girls working.