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In Germany, brothel owners – who must pay tax and employee health insurance – were granted access to official databases of job-seekers. And under Germany's welfare reforms, anyone under the age of 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job – including ones in the sex industry – or lose their unemployment benefits. The government had considered making brothels an exception on moral grounds, but since prostitution is no longer considered by the law to be immoral, they couldn't.

As a result, job centers must treat employers looking for a prostitute in the same way as those looking for a dental nurse. And increasing pressure on job centers to meet employment targets has resulted in them using their powers to cut the benefits of women who refuse jobs providing sexual services- under new regulations, if they refuse to enforce this, or to accept the brothels' advertisements, the job centers are now liable to be sued by the potential employers.

"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 specializes 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." Miss Garweg said that women who had worked in call centers were being routinely offered jobs on telephone sex lines, and that at one job center in the city of Gotha, a 23yo woman was told that she had to attend an interview as a "nude model", and should report back on the meeting.

What do you think of this development? Do you agree with the move to legalize and regulate prostitution? And if so, how do you feel about unemployed women being told that "if you don't take jobs as prostitutes, we'll cut off your benefits"? Do you support the stance of Angela Merkel's government, or oppose it?