Victimless Crime Meets Welfare Reform in Germany

Libertarians are fond of calling prostitution a 'victimless crime.' About two years ago, Germany legalized prostitution. Read what happened when the welfare system was reformed: 'If you don't take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits'by Clare Chapman (Daily Independent, UK)

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.

The government can't distinguish between bars and brothels? Well, these days we cannot make exception to anything on moral grounds, I suppose. We wouldn't want to appear to be narrowminded and prudish. If this doesn't illustrate the moral bankruptcy of government compulsion (welfare reform), I don't know what does.

This is a day of new beginnings,
time to remember and move on,
time to believe what love is bringing,
laying to rest the pain that's gone.

For by the life and death of Jesus,
God's mighty Spirit, now as then,
can make for us a world of difference,
as faith and hope are born again.

--Brian Wren
This is a day of new beginnings, 1978, alt.
(1st 2 verses)