Trust the press?


Or maybe not.

Today, The Age featured an article claiming:

German job centres are offering unemployed women work as prostitutes and are obliged to cut welfare benefits of those who refuse to work in the world's oldest profession under new welfare laws.

Do I believe it? I searched Google News for similar articles. Only one source gave enough detail of the situation that triggered the news: *cough* World Net Daily. *cough*

I read the article in World Net Daily. I remembered that newspaper's name from somewhere. Ah yes. They were the ones who published a penetrating piece on the Harry Potter phenomenon and how the books encourage witchcraft and Satanism. In fact they even went so far as to quote from an article in The Onion as support! Snopes records their error for our entertainment.

Let's get back to the German brothel question. The one example quoted in WND is of a 25 year old woman who was threatened with unemployment benefit cuts when she turned down a job working in a bar in a brothel. Of course, the fundamentalist rag tarts up the story by giving it the sub-heading, "German law forces out-of-work females to take sex jobs or lose unemployment," to inflame the issue. Since when did working as a bartender count as being a sex job?

By the time the story is repeated in The Telegraph - Calcutta, the woman is supposed to have turned down a job providing "sexual services." Strangely enough, The Telegraph doesn't quote a source for its story. The Age does at least include the name of their reporter and his supposed location, Berlin. Did any reporters really do any journalism for their articles today, or did they rely on WND's impeccable journalistic record and recycle the WND report published on the 29th?

Tell me about it when the first German actually loses unemployment benefits for refusing a sex job. Even then I'll treat what I read with skepticism.


Hah! They were on about that over at I knew it was too, be true. Good for a laugh, though.

I suppose it's always possible that the German regulations did allow for such an absurd situation as forced prostitution. All it takes for that to come about is two separate bureaucratic departments each setting regulations based on what they see as fair and reasonable: one that demands that any legitimate business can offer jobs to the unemployed, and the other that demands that an unemployed person can't reject a job offer and keep getting benefits. When the two sets of regulations are used together, an absurd situation arises that neither department predicted.

Under those conditions, a petty-minded rule-following employment officer could have threatened a woman with loss of benefits if she didn't take a job as a sex worker. But let's face it, even the most officious worker wouldn't do that unless someone had really pissed them off. If it did come to that, the usual process of appeal to higher authority should have been followed, and, given time, the rules would be changed.

The WND's agenda is pretty clear. They wanted to present a "Look what happens when you legalize prostitution" argument. They had no interest in presenting any information on whether the woman's claims were true, or, if they were, what steps were being taken to remedy the problem. To them it's fear to feed to the fundie masses.

It's all academic now. Here's an update where a reporter has taken the trouble to get the other side of the story:

A spokesman for the Federal Labour Office said that if job seekers said they were prepared to work as, for example, dancers in strip bars, advisers could put them in touch with any suitable employers, but vacancies would not be displayed in job centres.

He also stressed job centres would not look for prostitutes on behalf of brothels, nor offer sex industry jobs to people who had not specifically mentioned it as an area of interest.

Speculation has grown over recent weeks that Germany's new welfare reforms, obliging the long-term unemployed to take any available job or risk losing their benefits, could lead to women being offered jobs in the sex industry.

"One can't expect everyone to be prepared to work in the sex industry," Ms Luft said.

"Plus if people aren't very attractive they aren't going to make much money."