Wow! About the worst thing I have ever read!

[Socrates]

[quote name='Iacobus' date='Feb 1 2005, 08:21 PM'] There is something inherently wrong with not having a difference in your "must" work laws between something as immoral as a brothel and something like a café. If you are going to force people to take jobs to get off welfare (I would prefer that they have to prove they are activily looking without force) than show the difference.

The problem is in both, the prostituion and the law that doesn't show any difference. [/quote]
The problem is prostitution being treated legally as a legit business. I f prostitution was not legalized, there wouldn't be this whole problem. Argent Paladin's right about this one.

[Sinner]

Or maybe not......... see the Urban Legends Web Site about this article. It is a good site to check when you get forwards about various issues that seem just a little farfetched.

[url="http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/brothel.asp"]Urban Legends [/url]

[argent_paladin]

I agree that no one has actually been forced to be a prostitute. But I don't see any easy way out of it. Basically, Germany has painted itself into a corner. If they hold that

A. Prostitution is a legitimate occupation, without any moral approbation
and
B. If you turn down a job offer from a legitimate employer for which you are qualified then your benefits can be withdrawn

Then we are logically compelled to accept

C. If you turn down a job offer from a brothel then your benefits can be withdrawn. If Germany tries to modify the prostitution law, they will face attack from those saying that it stigmatizes sex workers and discriminates unfairly against tax-paying businesses. If they modify the second law, their 11% unemployment rate would get even bigger, because people could say that they are morally opposed to any number of jobs and continue to collect money.

Even if no one has actually been victimized, the present state of affairs is still absurd.

[jezic]

wouldn't surprise me at all

the world is hanging by a thread. How much longer can it last like this? personally we could probably count the years.

[argent_paladin]

This article makes me feel a little better:

Unemployed could be offered brothel work


By David Crossland
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

BERLIN — Germany's trade union federation has warned that unemployed people can legally be asked to seek work in brothels under new welfare reforms introduced on Jan. 1 aimed at cutting mass joblessness.
The reforms, the toughest package of cuts introduced by any German government since World War II, state that people out of work for more than 12 months must take on any type of work or face cuts in their benefits.
Prostitution is legal in Germany and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's center-left government gave prostitutes employment protection rights in 2002. Prostitutes are now eligible for social welfare benefits.
"At present, no one is being asked to work as a prostitute against their will, and such a situation will probably never arise. But the government has neglected to clarify what type of work should be judged unacceptable, and that's what we're criticizing," said Claudia Falk, spokeswoman for the DGB trade union federation in the northern port of Hamburg.
"We need to get legal definitions of what constitutes unacceptable work," Ms. Falk said. "Theoretically, there could be misunderstandings. You could get cleverly worded advertisements for jobs as 'young waitresses' that have little to do with serving tables."
The government conceded that unemployment was likely to top 5 million for January, the highest level since the war. Faced with important regional elections this year and a general election in 2006, the government has put intense pressure on job centers to place the long-term unemployed in any kind of work.
The January rise in unemployment can be partly explained by a statistical effect of the reforms that have put thousands of welfare claimants in the regular jobless statistics for the first time.
But the number of jobless Germans has remained more than 4 million since 2001, and the jobless rate has been above 10 percent for more than a decade because of a combination of slow economic growth, some of the highest labor costs in the world and generous welfare benefits that in many cases have dulled people's desire to seek work.
Newspapers have reported cases in which job centers referred women to topless bars or brothels by mistake. In a widely reported case in 2003, a Berlin job center sent a 25-year-old woman for an interview in a massage parlor, not knowing it was a brothel.
However, the Federal Labor Office, which manages the dense network of state-funded job centers, said no one is sent for interviews in brothels, topless bars or striptease clubs unless they want to work there.
"Basically, prostitution isn't illegal and it's not out of the question that we refer people to such jobs, but because we have to adhere to certain societal norms, no one who hasn't expressed the desire to do such work will be referred there," said Ulrich Waschki, a spokesman for the Labor Office.
"And if a prostitute quits her job because she's sick of it, she won't face the penalties we usually impose on people who voluntarily give up work."

[Socrates]

Maybe this isn't directly relevant to the prostitution issue, but this article points out the problems of the socialistic welfare state which some seem to think we should aspire to.