A new project in Germany is retraining prostitutes to become care workers for elderly people. Reasons for the shortage include a recent clampdown on Eastern Europeans working illegally as care workers and the reluctance of Germans to take on the work. Rita Kuehn is from Diakone Westfalen, a Protestant welfare programme that runs nursing homes across the country and that is behind the novel retraining scheme.
She said. Diakone Westfalen plans to offer 30 prostitutes between the ages of 20 and 40 the chance to train for a new career, with two years of courses and vocational training.
A former prostitute, Gisela Zohren, 56, is helping to get the project started. She works at the Midnight Mission, a help centre for sex workers in Dortmund. She says life is getting tougher on the streets, and at least half of the women she meets want to leave the sex business. Ms Zohren estimates that at least 50 prostitutes work in North Rhine-Westphalia alone, many having come from Eastern Europe and South America, as well as many locals who are forced to walk the streets because of a lack of other employment options.
No one can make any money any more, and the prostitution market is flooded. Ms Zohren left the streets in the late s to become a care worker before returning to help the women she left behind. Most men just want a nanny. All I really had to change was the outfit. And she found that looking after women was just as natural. To try to alleviate the concerns of any potential employers, Ms Zohren and other project coordinators are to go on a road show around the state in the coming weeks.
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