The following is an informal translation of an article titled “Ein Job wie jeder andere,” which ran in the left of center Berlin Tageszeitung on December 18, 2004. It appears to be one of two articles Daily Telegraph journalist Clare Chapman cribbed from while writing her hatchet job on prostitution and the German unemployment system. [The other, Jobben in der Grauzone (jobbing in a gray area) by Anke Schwarzer of Jungle World, is translated here.]

Just a Job to Do

Hartz IV made it all possible: Putting chronically unemployed women to work in the red light district. Legally, there is no minimum standard of reasonableness for job announcements. Employment agencies are imposing limits on themselves - for now.

KAI VON APPEN

The subject enrages every feminist. “I can’t believe it, I’m calling my lawyer!” screams one female colleague. “Let’s not even run this story, it will put women at risk,” insists another. Even DGB (Deutsche Gewerkschaftsbund, or German Confederation of Labor Unions) spokeswoman Claudia Falk was indignant at first. “No, no no!” she insisted. That just can’t be right!” Yet, since January 1, the legal landscape has changed: in accordance with the reasonableness / means testing requirements for unemployment benefits, it is theoretically possible that women could be referred to serious bordellos, not only to serve on their supporting staff, but also to work as prostitutes.

Prostitution as a profession has been legal since 2002. In that sense, the duties of a sex worker make it just another job, like any other. Thus, following the enactment of the Hartz IV bill, the unemployment agency would have no basis to refuse to refer would-be workers to jobs in the field of “sexual services.” “Legally, this profession can no longer be considered immoral,” explains Mechthild Garweg, an attorney who specializes in family law and social justice, and who trains people for new careers. “There is no legal obstacle to procuring jobs in this field.” If a Muslim must work in a slaughterhouse for pigs, a young man must work as a “Nacktputzer” (naked cleaner: don’t ask) and a former telemarketer or telephone customer service worker must work for a telephone sex company, “why then should it not be expected of a grown woman that she earn her keep through a little professional screwing?” Garweg adds, provocatively. “There aren’t any legal or criminal barriers to this, only cultural and societal mores and personal scruples.”

After further internal research among experts, DGB spokeswoman Falk reluctantly admitted as much. “There really is no minimum standard for reasonableness,” she acknowledged, as “the lawmakers failed to codify one.” Falk nevertheless trusts people to use their better judgment: “Hopefully a consensus will soon emerge that certain things simply are not done.”

There is another angle on this story, however. “Prostitutes and bordellos pay into our nation’s unemployment, health and social security systems, so they have a right to avail themselves of the referral systems of the unemployment office like anyone else,” maintains Stephanie Klee of the Bundesverband sexueller Dienstleistungen (Federal Association of Sex Workers). Anything less, she argues amounts to “discrimination against prostitutes.” Klee and Falk agree on the key issue, however. “A woman can only work in this trade if she’s up to it,” says Klee. “It would equally silly to place me in a job as a nurse.”

She operates under the assumption that employment agencies will hold fast to their own voluntary standards and avoid referring job applicants into the field of prostitution. However, this directive does not apply for the food and table dance industries. Falk, too, sees a grey area there: “There will be borderline cases, like the occasional waitress who is asked to don a mini-skirt and serve drinks at the bar of a bordello, or a dancer who is referred to a table dancing venue.”

Emilija Mitrovic, a social scientist at the Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften (College of Applied Sciences) in Hamburg and the author of Arbeitsplatz Prostitution (Workplace Prostitution), a study sponsored by Vereinten Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft (United Service Workers Union), sees several different sides to the issue. “You don’t need a formal education to work as a prostitute,” the researcher says. Nevertheless, she maintains, the prostitution law does not allow any woman to be compelled to perform sexual services against her will. The statute she refers to, however, applies primarily to pimps and other individuals who operate the bordellos, not necessarily to employment agencies, and there is no question that a demand exists for sex workers. Says Mitrovic: “Of course the agencies can refuse to recognize this as a legitimate line of work, but doing so may cause problems.”

Knut Börnsen, a spokesman for the Hamburg employment agency, disagrees. “We still have morals, and we still use restraint.” Thus, his agency does not issue referrals to bordellos. According to Börnsen, “Businesses like that do not do not contact our agency seeking new recruits. They have other avenues for that.”

Still, there have been some individual cases already. What if the job is officially listed as a bartender, but the bar happens to be located in a bordello? “If a woman doesn’t feel comfortable working there, we accept that,” said Börnsen. Börnsen promptly qualified that statement, however, adding that “whether this refusal has any consequences, that would have to be examined on a case by case basis.”

Emilija Mitrovic notes the speed with which a country’s norms and values can change. “There is a substantial risk that this the employment agencies will reverse their practices.” She notes that even now, the department of labor is required to issue work permits to Polish women who arrive in the country together with their pimps.