31-01-2005 10:24									#31
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Another article on German economics:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai.../30/wgerm30.xml

quote: If you don't take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits' By Clare Chapman (Filed: 30/01/2005) 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. Telegraph Financial Services & Reader Guides 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. When the waitress looked into suing the job centre, she found out that it had not broken the law. Job centres that refuse to penalise people who turn down a job by cutting their benefits face legal action from the potential employer. "There is now nothing in the law to stop women from being sent into the sex industry," said Merchthild Garweg, a lawyer from Hamburg who specialises in such cases. "The new regulations say that working in the sex industry is not immoral any more, and so jobs cannot be turned down without a risk to benefits." Miss Garweg said that women who had worked in call centres had been offered jobs on telephone sex lines. At one job centre in the city of Gotha, a 23-year-old woman was told that she had to attend an interview as a "nude model", and should report back on the meeting. Employers in the sex industry can also advertise in job centres, a move that came into force this month. A job centre that refuses to accept the advertisement can be sued. Tatiana Ulyanova, who owns a brothel in central Berlin, has been searching the online database of her local job centre for recruits. "Why shouldn't I look for employees through the job centre when I pay my taxes just like anybody else?" said Miss Ulyanova. Ulrich Kueperkoch wanted to open a brothel in Goerlitz, in former East Germany, but his local job centre withdrew his advertisement for 12 prostitutes, saying it would be impossible to find them. Mr Kueperkoch said that he was confident of demand for a brothel in the area and planned to take a claim for compensation to the highest court. Prostitution was legalised in Germany in 2002 because the government believed that this would help to combat trafficking in women and cut links to organised crime. 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."

	31-01-2005 10:31									#32
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quote: 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.

Now tell me that isn't f'd up.

	31-01-2005 10:52									#33
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Damn, that's messed up. Maybe the woman can sue under EU law. There has to be something against sexual slavery, and the argument is that is what the German government is doing in that case. Well, it's an argument .

	31-01-2005 11:35									#34
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin quote: 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. Now tell me that isn't f'd up.

They cut her unemployment benefits because she didn't want to be selling her body?

Germany.. is a one nation crime wave. The government seems to be funding this crime.

	31-01-2005 13:39									#35
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin Now tell me that isn't f'd up.

That's consistent with the idea that people are responsible for their situation as unemployed. Germany's new unemployment laws intend to "responsabilize" the unemployed (like many such laws across Europe). If she turned down a job opportunity, then it MUST mean she's a lazy bum who wants to live off welfare

Edit:

quote: "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."

Such can be said of plenty of other jobs that are not widely perceived as humiliating, but which are perceived like that by the one forced in there.

	31-01-2005 14:19									#36
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I agree that there are to many people sucking up unemployment benifets but I'm sure there is a better way to do things then to have women become hookers. Liberalizing their economy to lower the tax and regulatory burden on small companies seems like a good way. As does subsidized loans for people to start up small businesses.

Telling women to be whores just doesn't sound like a good idea.

Last edited by Oerdin on 31-01-2005 at 14:31

	31-01-2005 14:29									#37
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quote: 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.

For the moment I have trouble believing this - the German media here is highly critical towards the new laws but I can't find anything about this story here.

	31-01-2005 14:45									#38
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To be honest,
it sounds to me like some kind of "Bild"-style news
(Bild is a common newspaper in germany, with big headlines and much bigger lies )

Prostitution in Brothels is legalized thatīs fully correct
they have to pay taxes and insurances and get unemployment benefits.
But itīs hard to me to believe,
that a woman faced cuts in their unemployment benefits because she didnīt want to work as a prostitute.
(if, on the other hand, the situation is different, and she was offered a job as regular barmaid [without having to give the guests other services than just serving them drinks ] itīs easier for me to believe it is true.
In this case it is the job profile that counts [i.e. serving drinks] and not the location where it takes place)

I can hardly believe that the BfA forces women to become prostitutes
(AFAIK it also doesnīt say that the receivers of unemployment benefits have to take any job they are offered, but to take any "reasonable job" and I doubt that becoming a prostitute would count under the category of reasonable jobs)

	31-01-2005 14:49									#39
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You know that Bild is a far more serious news source than the Torygraph

	31-01-2005 14:52									#40
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quote: Originally posted by Spiffor You know that Bild is a far more serious news source than the Torygraph

This would be a good reason to not even believe them,
if they write that earth is a globe

	31-01-2005 14:52									#41
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You don't like the London Telegraph?

	31-01-2005 14:55									#42
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Well the story disturbed me so much that I mailed it to German media and asked if that is correct, and if so why this is not in German news. First time I did such thing.

Now let's hope they don't throw rocks at me

	31-01-2005 14:58									#43
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Clearly Germany should take a leaf out of the United States' book when it comes to dealing with political parties the government doesn't like: use the secret services and national police force to hound them, plant evidence, give entirely false stories to pliant subservient media outlets, get people suspected of being sympathizers compelled to appear before parliamentary investigative committees, deny passports and travel outside the country to people suspected of being members, and encourage employers to fire or not hire people suspected of being members of any subversive group.


When all else fails, have big police shoot-outs and lose evidence pertaining to shooting related deaths, or use the Mayor Rizzo Philadelphia style treatment and burn down whole city blocks.


Banning a poitical party is so unsubtle, after all.....

	31-01-2005 15:36									#44
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin You don't like the London Telegraph?

Unless I confuse it with another British newspaper calle the Telegraph, I'm prone to believe any accusation that this newspaper is lying, ever since they found "damning documents" against France and Russia lying around the ruins of official buildings in Baghdad, right after the war.

	31-01-2005 15:52									#45
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quote: Originally posted by Spiffor Unless I confuse it with another British newspaper calle the Telegraph, I'm prone to believe any accusation that this newspaper is lying, ever since they found "damning documents" against France and Russia lying around the ruins of official buildings in Baghdad, right after the war.

No you're not confused, and it's proper title is 'The Daily Telegraph' .

It's frequently characterised in the United Kingdom as the paper read by retired gouty choleric colonels in Eastbourne still labouring under the misapprehension that large parts of the globe belong to the British Empire.

It was a stereotypical cheerleading rag for the Tory Party when Thatcher and Major headed them. It doesn't give right wing Conservatism as much of a bad name as the Daily Mail though, usually because the journalists it employs seem to be slightly more intelligent and less concerned with ephemeral 'celebrities' and the minutiae of the Ideal Home Exhibition.

	01-02-2005 01:01									#46
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quote: Originally posted by BeBro Well the story disturbed me so much that I mailed it to German media and asked if that is correct, and if so why this is not in German news. First time I did such thing. Now let's hope they don't throw rocks at me

Any response?

	01-02-2005 01:08									#47
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Not until now. They ignore me

	01-02-2005 01:14									#48
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quote: Originally posted by molly bloom Clearly Germany should take a leaf out of the United States' book when it comes to dealing with political parties the government doesn't like: use the secret services and national police force to hound them, plant evidence, give entirely false stories to pliant subservient media outlets, get people suspected of being sympathizers compelled to appear before parliamentary investigative committees, deny passports and travel outside the country to people suspected of being members, and encourage employers to fire or not hire people suspected of being members of any subversive group. When all else fails, have big police shoot-outs and lose evidence pertaining to shooting related deaths, or use the Mayor Rizzo Philadelphia style treatment and burn down whole city blocks. Banning a poitical party is so unsubtle, after all.....

we don't have parliamentary investigative committees, get it right

	01-02-2005 01:29									#49
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What I mainly object to is calling this racist party "far right." The only thing we seem to know about its politics is that it is racist and anti-Semitic. Communists can be racist and anti-Semitic just as much as Fascists.

	01-02-2005 07:26									#50
	Germany does the wrong thing again and again and again (hookers and sperm oh my!) Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai.../30/wgerm30.xml

quote: 'If you don't take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits' By Clare Chapman (Filed: 30/01/2005) 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. (god, what the **** is up with German bars?!?!?!) As a result, job centres must treat employers looking for a prostitute in the same way as those looking for a dental nurse. When the waitress looked into suing the job centre, she found out that it had not broken the law. Job centres that refuse to penalise people who turn down a job by cutting their benefits face legal action from the potential employer. "There is now nothing in the law to stop women from being sent into the sex industry," said Merchthild Garweg, a lawyer from Hamburg who specialises in such cases. "The new regulations say that working in the sex industry is not immoral any more, and so jobs cannot be turned down without a risk to benefits." Miss Garweg said that women who had worked in call centres had been offered jobs on telephone sex lines. At one job centre in the city of Gotha, a 23-year-old woman was told that she had to attend an interview as a "nude model", and should report back on the meeting. Employers in the sex industry can also advertise in job centres, a move that came into force this month. A job centre that refuses to accept the advertisement can be sued. Tatiana Ulyanova, who owns a brothel in central Berlin, has been searching the online database of her local job centre for recruits. "Why shouldn't I look for employees through the job centre when I pay my taxes just like anybody else?" said Miss Ulyanova. Ulrich Kueperkoch wanted to open a brothel in Goerlitz, in former East Germany, but his local job centre withdrew his advertisement for 12 prostitutes, saying it would be impossible to find them. Mr Kueperkoch said that he was confident of demand for a brothel in the area and planned to take a claim for compensation to the highest court. Prostitution was legalised in Germany in 2002 because the government believed that this would help to combat trafficking in women and cut links to organised crime. 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."

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/inte...1401672,00.html

quote: Big sperm race is staged on German reality TV Luke Harding in Berlin Sunday January 30, 2005 The Observer After Big Brother and Jungle Camp, Germans can tune in to a TV reality show this week that breaks new ground in trashiness ... Sperm Race. Twelve men will compete against each other to see which one of them has the 'fastest' sperm. The contestants, who include two German celebrities and a health freak, begin by donating sperm in a clinic, say the programme's producers, Endemol. The sperm will then be frozen and sent to the company's studio in Cologne, where the sperm will 'race' towards an egg - lured by a chemical that encourages them across the finishing line. Three doctors, including a gynaecologist, will be on hand to make sure the sperm behave correctly, while cameras will record it all. As well as laying claim to the title of Germany's most fertile man, the winner will also be given a suitably German reward, a red Porsche. Endemol Germany's president, Boris Brandt, denied yesterday that Sperm Race represented a new low point in dumbed-down TV. He claimed that the show had a serious scientific purpose. 'Sperm Race is serious. Fertility is a big thing in Germany,' he told Germany's Bild newspaper. 'About 1.8 million German men are unable to have children because they suffer from poor sperm. And there are disappointed girlfriends and wives, as well as parents who wait in vain for grandchildren.' Brandt, whose company is responsible for the German Big Brother , said the cameras would not follow the contestants into the cubicles when they donated sperm.

Germany is a strange strange strange place these days.

	01-02-2005 07:28									#51
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Already a thread on it.

	01-02-2005 07:31									#52
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In fact, the dastards closed my good thread in favour of some crap thread.

	01-02-2005 07:33									#53
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin Already a thread on it.

*looks*
Bah, the hooker article was posted on the second page of a thread on nazi bans, that doesn't count and the racing sperm is new.

	01-02-2005 08:28									#54
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We shall see if the axe shall fall,

	01-02-2005 08:33									#55
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So we shall.

	01-02-2005 09:00									#56
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin We shall see if the axe shall fall,

Well... this time... a merged thread with the original.

	01-02-2005 11:16									#57
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If the Telegraph article is anywhere close to accurate, I will eat my beaver hat.

	01-02-2005 15:28									#58
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quote: Originally posted by Whoha we don't have parliamentary investigative committees, get it right

I was clearly referring to the German parliament, not H.U.A.C. .



You get it right.

	01-02-2005 15:37									#59
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Well, I didn't found something on this special case since yesterday, but as far as I read job centres can indeed offer any kind of job, and there is no clear definition what a "reasonable offer" is. However, there's also a law here which basically says nonone can be forced to prostitution, and even if that law wouldn't exist, you'd probably could call a court about this, since article 1 of our constitution declares "human dignity" the first principle, which means that any decision or law which would violate this principle would be unconstitutional.

	04-02-2005 04:48									#60
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BeBro, I assume Germany legalized prostitution to help the status of the women in the work and to minimize exploitation by pimps and other criminal elements. Has this worked out as intended?