German State Coerces Young Women into Prostitution

Now this will be an interesting topic to follow. The Telegraph reports that a German woman will loose her unemployment benefits if she does not accept work as a prostitute.

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.

Apparently, the legalization of prostitution in Germany has some unintended consequences - the coercion of women into the sex trade.

Now I may be old fashioned, but state-sanctioned coercion like this sounds criminal. This is what happens when the state tries to move away from a moral foundation for law.