05/10/05

When it legalized prostitution two years ago, Germany sought to bring the industry under state control, providing sex workers with labor rights and greater health protection. But some Germans are now saying the law has failed to achieve its objective. The issue came to the fore earlier this year when a 25-year-old waitress looking for work was told that she faced losing her unemployment benefits because she had turned down a job at a brothel. The woman was desperate to work, although not in a sex establishment. But under a new welfare law ... women under the age of 55 who have been out of work for more than a year must accept any job offered to them -- or give up unemployment benefits. ... The threat ... was not a real one. Nevertheless, the case has driven the country to reexamine the difficulties connected with one of the most controversial pieces of social legislation Germany has ever dealt with...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0511/p15s02-woeu.html

from Fox News


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp