Law of Unintended Consequences

The following story, although published in the News Telegraph, may not be accurate. See http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/brothel.asp
for more information.

The job seeker said that she had worked in a cafe as a waitress and was willing to work as a bar maid in the evenings, so the state decided that qualified her for the world's oldest profession. Other women who had worked as telephone callers were sent to jobs in the telephone sex industry. Anyone who refuses to take these jobs, risks having her unemployment benefits recinded. One has to wonder what kind of "interesting" positions are offered to males at German Unemployment Offices.

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

"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."

"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."