Workfare polices in the USA are generally harsher than in Europe. However even hard-line US welfare-bashers might be surprised, to see the unemployed compelled into prostitution. But that is apparently new policy in Amsterdam - for women primarily, but possibly also for young unemployed men. The City of Amsterdam will officially deny this story, so I will be careful about the details. Note first these points...

a. There is no specific official decision, taken at a specific meeting, to introduce compulsory prostitution for the unemployed. The policy is a result of changes in the law and welfare policy, explained in more detail below.

b. This is not something which is already in effect, but something which will take effect in the coming years.

c. It is not workfare as such, in the sense of a specific organised project, run or subsidised by the local government. The sex-clubs and escort services remain in private hands.

d. University-educated white women are not likely to be forced to work in a sex-club. It is the weakest entrants to the labour market who are most at risk. A typical example might be a Ruandan who arrived alone at age 16, and spent 2 years in an asylum centre. She then received official refugee status, she has no educational qualifications, speaks some English, but almost no Dutch. This category is most at risk of disappearing into illegal prostitution anyway.

e. The policy is not at the centre of official 're-integration' policy (workfare policy), but at its margins.

f. The policy has not yet been challenged at European level. If it was, there is a good chance that the European Court of Human Rights would reject any compulsion to prostitution, even indirectly through withdrawal of benefit.

I first heard about this issue in the context of a European Union Programme, called URBAN II. It is meant to help urban regeneration in declining cities, so Amsterdam does not really qualify anyway. Nevertheless all EU member states expect a share of the cake, so a project is being started in inner west Amsterdam. Part of these EU funds will be used for employment-related projects, building on an existing pilot project run by the NV Werk, a privatised reintegration service. NV Werk took over the administration of Social Security Benefit in one borough: they run a workfare programme there, on the principle "work before income". I met the coordinator of the URBAN II programme, to ask some questions about it. I asked him then, as an example, if the NV Werk had authority to place women claimants in prostitution. The answer was yes.

However, the European Union is not the prime cause of the 'workfare prostitution'. It was a policy shift which was already under way, and would exist without the URBAN II programme. There are three causes of this policy shift. One is the activity of the NV Werk, a privatised former department of the municipal Social Service, and comparable firms. (In the Netherlands, the 'Social Service' is a benefit agency, classic social work is done by subsidised private agencies).

The second cause is the introduction of hard-line workfare policies in the Netherlands. That was partly for financial reasons, to reduce welfare spending (although workfare costs money too). General resentment against claimants was probably more important, especially since the economy was short of labour, until mid-2001. Employers complained in the media that they could not fill their vacancies, while 40 000 unemployed received Social Security. The political parties began to compete with each other in welfare-bashing. New hard-line policies are the result of this political climate.

The details vary from one municipality to another, but Amsterdam has recently adopted a system where claimants are locked up in a converted warehouse with employers. If the claimants walk out, they lose their benefit. Otherwise, they are guarded by security men, until they have found a job, accepted a workfare placement, or signed up for training. In practice, most of them must sign up as a client of a re-integration company, which arranges the placement or training. A re-integration company (such as NV Werk) can, in turn, force them to sign up at an employment agency. That is where the margins of employment policy start. These agencies are totally unregulated - licensing was abandoned several years ago - and some of them specialise in the nastiest jobs. Some are pure criminal organisations, set up primarily to launder money. By the time claimants arrive at these agencies, they have effectively lost their rights. The agency can call the re-integration company if the claimant is 'not co-operative' - and the re-integration company can have their benefit stopped. It is a deliberately created climate of intimidation, modelled on American practice. This is the probable route to the sex-club and escort services.

The third cause of the policy shift is the full legalisation of prostitution in the Netherlands. Prostitution itself was already legal, but facilitating it was not. All sex-clubs and escort services were technically illegal. Since October 2001 new laws and regulation are in force, with the aim of fully legalising the sector. The relevant legal instrument is the abolition of the so-called 'brothel prohibition' dating from 1912. This amendment became law in October 2000. In the following months, municipalities introduced a licensing system for prostitution - nominally a local law, but in reality a standard national policy.

Press release, Ministry of Justice, 1999: Opheffing Bordeelverbod.
 http://www.minjust.nl/C_ACTUAL/persber/PB0540.htm

The legalisation of prostitution was a victory for campaigners, often feminists, who for ideological reasons treat prostitution as 'normal work'. Their attitude is symbolised by the politically correct term "sex worker" for prostitutes - I am deliberately not using it. The 'campaign' in the Netherlands was low-key, and spread over many years: prostitution was never a big political issue. These campaigners forget, that the unemployed (in most countries) are legally required to accept 'normal work'. In the Netherlands, they were indirectly creating an obligation to work as a prostitute. The same will happen in other countries, if prostitution is normalised to the same extent. (Similar legislation is being considered in Germany, with the same ideological background).

The legal changes in the Netherlands had noble-sounding aims. One was 'the end of involuntary prostitution' - a cynical lie, if it is re-introduced by the back door of workfare. (In a comparable way military service, which had been abolished in the Netherlands, is now also compulsory for the unemployed, if the Army offers a contract). The new laws also intended:
- to clearly separate the legal and illegal scenes,
- to exclude criminals from the licensed legal sector, and
- to exclude illegal immigrants and minors from prostitution.

In reality the changed law is already a failure. The licensed legal sector has shrunk, the illegal scene has grown, but is less visible. Nevertheless, one side-effect is that there is now a 'labour shortage' in the legal sector. Some owners, who spent money to upgrade their sex-club or 'windows' and obtain a license, have difficulty in finding legal adult residents to work there. This is the labour demand, which 'workfare prostitution' potentially fills. One other option for the owners is contracts with prostitutes from the EU candidate states in eastern Europe. The European Court of Justice ruled in November 2000, that they are entrepreneurs, and can legally engage in their business in any EU member state. (Illegal immigrants from outside the EU are unaffected by all this: they get no Social Security benefit anyway, and they never come in contact with re-integration companies).

The Court of Justice of the European Communities: Aldona Malgorzata Jany and Others and Staatssecretaris van Justitie.  http://curia.eu.int/jurisp/cgi-bin/gettext.pl?lang=en&num=79988879C19990268&doc=T&ouvert=T&seance=ARRET
(Note that in 1997 the women were refused a residence permit "on the ground that prostitution is a prohibited activity or at least not a socially acceptable form of work and cannot be regarded as being either a regular job or a profession.")

The politician most directly responsible for workfare policy in Amsterdam, alderman Jaap van der Aa, denies that the Social Service offers its clients no work as prostitutes. That is formally correct, but it is an evasion of the truth. The Social Service does not normally offer work anyway. Offers of work traditionally came from the national Employment Service, and now from the re-integration companies and workfare projects. In fact the new procedures are deliberately intended to deprive claimants of any right to appeal against work offered, by handing their case over to outside agencies. The claimants are then intimidated by these 'social entrepreneurs' into taking low-grade and often very unpleasant jobs. Again, this is standard American workfare practice.

The legal position is this...

All claimants are obliged to accept "suitable work" if it is offered. If they have previously worked, then they may first seek work in their previous profession, and refuse job offers outside that profession. When claimants have been unemployed for one year, or if they are under 23, then the position changes. From then on, "all work is suitable work". This formula is emphasised repeatedly, in official information for the claimants. Amsterdam restated this policy in September, in a press release from Alderman van der Aa: "those who refuse an offer of suitable work lose their right to benefit". The press release also emphasised that "for school leavers and those who just finished studying, then in principle all work is considered suitable"

Amsterdam press release: Huisregels Mega Banenmarkt.
 http://www.amsterdam.nl/nieuwsactueel/2001/pb/pb-75a.html

The national legal definition of suitable work is "all employment which can be reckoned within the powers and capabilities of the person in question, unless its acceptance can not be required from him (her) on physical, mental or social grounds". The first two possible objections are tested by medical examination: if the doctor says the claimant is fit, then the claimant must accept the job. The job itself is not tested, so if for instance young claimants are fit, healthy and mentally stable, they would have to join the Army if that 'job' was offered. There is no fixed procedure for testing 'social objections', in practice it is a personal discretion of the Social Service official.

There is a right of appeal against any decision to cut benefit, although the appeals commission, and the courts, already take a tough line on what is "suitable". So in practice, so long as a legal form of work is offered, which does not involve any great physical effort, the Social Service can force acceptance of the job offer. Note that the decision on whether work is "suitable" never rests with the claimant, it always rests fully with the Social Service, even if it is legally challenged. The courts examine the legality of the decision, never the preferences of the claimant. There is no 'conscientious objection' in the whole procedure. The fact that a claimant hates the job, or thinks it is morally wrong, does not make it "unsuitable", and is not legally relevant.

In any case, the present practice is, that claimants are forced to sign up for 're-integration'. They must agree to follow the instructions of the re-integration company, to find work. In practice they have signed away their right to object, since the Social Service can stop their benefit for 'obstruction'. Claimants who are well informed, not easily intimidated, and know where to find legal advice, can probably challenge such a cut in benefit, and insist on their right to an appeals tribunal. The weakest claimants, socially isolated and perhaps speaking no Dutch, are most at risk of being forced into damaging work. Again, this is a typical feature of workfare policies, indicated by experience in the USA.

The policy of the Amsterdam Social Service is clearly to place people in jobs, against their will if necessary. Job interviews supervised by a security guard are one indication, of how tough they are on that. If the city, and Alderman van der Aa, were serious about not placing claimants in prostitution, even indirectly, then they could take a decision to forbid the practice. The Mayor and Aldermen (the city government) could define all sex industry work as "non-suitable". They could contractually forbid re-integration firms to offer the work, or pressure claimants to accept it. No such decisions have been taken.

A note on the politicians involved. When I first heard of the policy in relation to URBAN II, that programme was in the portfolio of Alderwoman Pauline Krikke. A neo-liberal city promoter, she was not really interested in workfare issues: she left in early summer 2001, to become Mayor of Arnhem. Her successor, Ton Hooijmaijers, is a right-wing businessman with a rigid belief in the market, the entrepreneur and the work ethic. He achieved notoriety when he suggested in an interview that psychiatric patients should be forced to work, for instance packing chocolate. As alderman for Economic Affairs he is responsible for employment policy, but he shares responsibility for workfare with the Social Affairs alderman, Jaap van der Aa.

Of the three, van der Aa is the most consistently hostile to claimants (rather than to welfare as such). He clearly despises them, and sees them as defrauding the system. In several interviews journalists reported that he was amused at the traps he was setting for them. The forced job application scheme was his idea, indeed he had linked his political future to its success. One national politician is relevant here: Ad Melkert, the new leader of the Netherlands Labour Party, PvdA. As such, he is a possible successor to Wim Kok as Prime Minister. As minister for Social Affairs Melkert introduced the first workfare schemes to the Netherlands in the early 90's - they are still known as 'Melkert-jobs'. He undoubtedly approved the hard-line workfare policies in Amsterdam: if he thought they would damage his electoral prospects, he would have them cancelled. At the European level, European Commissioner Michel Barnier (a Gaullist career politician) is responsible for the URBAN II programme. He knows it might involve compulsory prostitution, or at least his staff know, because I asked his position on the issue. However, he formally refuses to intervene in details of EU-funded programmes in the member states.

In conclusion, there is a real risk of vulnerable claimants being forced into prostitution in the coming years as part of hard-line workfare policies in Amsterdam. This issue is ignored by the Dutch media, and by the large political parties - who do not want to be seen as 'soft on welfare parasites'. It became a risk largely because of the privatisation of the Social Security system, and the unregulated power of re-integration firms over individual claimants. It is a risk that could be avoided by a simple decision to remove it, but neither the City of Amsterdam, the national government, or the European Commission has the political will to take this decision.