Government as pimp

last updated 8 January 2015

Berlin

The German government has threatened to cut unemployment benefits to a woman who refused to take a job as a prostitute. The 25-year-old woman, whose name has not been released, is an out-of-work computer programmer. When a Berlin brothel owner saw her information in a database of job seekers and offered her a position, she refused on moral grounds. But the government said she couldn’t continue to accept benefits if there was a job available to her. Prostitution has been legal in Germany for two years, so brothels are considered just another workplace. The unemployment rate nationwide is 9 percent.