"If you don't take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits'"
segunda-feira, janeiro 31, 2005
Vem no insuspeito e sóbrio The Guardian...
É, obviamente, um caso extremo, barroco, e pode-se alegar que por cá nunca acontecerá disto, uma mulher arriscar-se a ficar sem subsídio de desemprego por... recusar um emprego como call girl, mas esta visão crua, geométrica e pragmática, chamemos-lhe assim, do mundo dá que pensar. É, tão só é bom recordar, uma visão tecnocrata.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. 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." (...)
Publicado por Manuel 21:50:00
2 Comments:
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7:30 da manhã, fevereiro 01, 2005
Aonde nos leva o politicamente correcto...10:25 da manhã, fevereiro 01, 2005E fiquei eu chateado quando o meu centro de emprego me propôs ir vender torneiras e acessórios de canalização por €600/mês...
