Claim: Women in Germany face the loss of unemployment benefits if they decline to accept work in brothels. Status: False. Example: [The Telegraph, ]. Prostitution was legalized in Germany just over two years ago and brothel owners β who must pay tax and employee health insurance β 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, realize 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 β including in the sex industry β or lose her unemployment benefit. Last month German unemployment rose for the 11th consecutive month to 4. 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 centers must treat employers looking for a prostitute in the same way as those looking for a dental nurse. Origins: A news story about a year-old German woman who faced cuts to her unemployment benefits for turning down a job providing "sexual services'' at a brothel was carried by a variety of English-language news sources in January It has struck a chord in many.
We were initially skeptical about the literal truth of the version reported in the English press, however, because the issue seemed to have received scant attention in the German press.
