'If you don't take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits'

The Telegraph ^ | 30/01/2005 | Clare Chapman

[KittyKares]

'If you don't take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits' I live to receive this letter.

LOL!

[Recovering Ex-hippie]

If its a "victimless crime"...which it is if prostitution is legal and monitored....why pursue it?
Morality of this nature needs to be addressed with the family, spiritual and psychological intervention.

[KittyKares]

They equate cutting unemployment benefits to coercion to take the unwanted position (no pun intended). If they had any gumption they would get off the couch and find something to do useful to society, and the compensation would follow. That's the natural order of things - not waiting for a government check.

Excellent point.

[investigateworld]

Thanks (taking bow)
But I want to tax it just like my stogies get taxed. But having attended the autopsy's of several 'street ladies', I want them to be practicing their 'craft?' in safe place. Even Jesus stopped the violence towards one of them. We can do no less.

[Clemenza]

I got news for you, the Village Voice and the NY Press could not survive without ads from "escorts." I got news for you those ladies/men/shemales aren't intended to be your "companion" to the Yankee game if you catch my drift.

[skinkinthegrass]

Remember that not long ago our own IRS was running a brothel in Nevada...the Mustang Ranch.

..Sens. Chris Dodd, Ted "Swimmer" Kennedy and $hrillary Klintoon, volunteered/wanted to oversee that operation.

[fella]

Another case of lawyers making laws to benefit lawyers. Who do you think has enough money to be able to afford a brothel in that unemployed nation?

[investigateworld]

What, you never heard of Visa?

[Recovering Ex-hippie]

I really like your brand of spirituality !

[LauraleeBraswell]

I'm sure all those women are clean as a whistle considering condoms are only 85 % effective.

It's like STD central here. Prostitution is dangerous hygienically and it breeds all kinds of crime and create pimps and slavery.

[Clemenza]

Legalize it, regulate it (with regular health inspections) and tax it. Let's not pretend that it will "go away."

[pau1f0rd]

I wonder what the males will do when forced into homosexual prostitution?

Probably get a job!

[litany_of_lies]

Interesting/depressing background:

Link--
http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/ten-reasons.html
(scroll down to point 2)

2. Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution and the sex industry promotes sex trafficking.

Legalized or decriminalized prostitution industries are one of the root causes of sex trafficking. One argument for legalizing prostitution in the Netherlands was that legalization would help end the exploitation of desperate immigrant women trafficked for prostitution. A report done for the governmental Budapest Group* stated that 80% of women in the brothels in the Netherlands are trafficked from other countries (Budapest Group, 1999: 11). As early as 1994, the International Organization of Migration (IOM) stated that in the Netherlands alone, nearly 70 per cent of trafficked women were from CEEC [Central and Eastern European Countries] (IOM, 1995: 4).

(snip)

In January, 2002, prostitution in Germany was fully established as a legitimate job after years of being legalized in so-called eros or tolerance zones. Promotion of prostitution, pimping and brothels are now legal in Germany. As early as 1993, after the first steps towards legalization had been taken, it was recognized (even by pro-prostitution advocates) that 75 per cent of the women in Germany's prostitution industry were foreigners from Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay and other countries in South America (Altink, 1993: 33). After the fall of the Berlin wall, brothel owners reported that 9 out of every 10 women in the German sex industry were from eastern Europe (Altink, 1993: 43) and other former Soviet countries.

The sheer volume of foreign women who are in the prostitution industry in Germany, by some NGO estimates now up to 85 per cent, casts further doubt on the fact that these numbers of women could have entered Germany without facilitation. As in the Netherlands, NGOs report that most of the foreign women have been trafficked into the country since it is almost impossible for poor women to facilitate their own migration, underwrite the costs of travel and travel documents, and set themselves up in business without outside help.

---

So it would appear that even large-scale trafficking is not enough to feed the "demand" for sex workers, as at least some German brothels are posting their job openings at the local unemployment office.

Either that, or their customers are demanding "domestic content," so to speak. If that's true, how convenient for the brothel owner that domestic must take "positions" at his place of business-he avoids all of those pesky costs involved in importing the women.

Either way, the degradation is near-complete.

[DB]

Absolutely correct!

That's is the root of the issue and the above story is one of the many results.

[lainde]

Germany has gone completely bonkers!

[Michael.SF.]

And why is Reno making so much money on this?

Janet Reno is making money off of German hookers?

Wow, another reason to dislike her.

;)

[Dark Wing]

This is evil.

[Tall_Texan]

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.

That's the heart of the problem right there - government trying to decriminalize crime on the supposition that the government can be better pimps than the private sector.

And what do you bet part of Germany's unemployment crisis is because burdensome government regulations have probably chased a lot of industry elsewhere?

[MontanaBeth]

Thank you for not answering my question, let's just end this conversation. I am not promoting a feminist philosphy here and have not been. My response to you is: Don't Tread On Me!

[Doc-Joe]

WTF?