Project retrains prostitutes as care workers for elderly people

A new project in Germany is retraining prostitutes to become care workers for elderly people.

The state of North Rhine-Westphalia is using €1m (£0.7m; $1.2m) of local and European Union money to try to get sex trade workers off the street and into care homes.

Heinz Oberlach, from Germany's Federal Labour Agency, said that using prostitutes as care workers is “very logical,” as the nursing home sector is seriously understaffed and has some 6400 vacancies nationwide—despite a national unemployment rate of 12% in Germany. 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.

“It all fits together like pieces of a puzzle,” said Mr Oberlach.

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. “It was an obvious move.”

She believes that prostitutes make excellent carers as they have “good people skills, aren't easily disgusted, and have zero fear of physical contact.”

“These characteristics can set former prostitutes apart from trainee nurses,” she said

She added, “However, nursing home bosses will have to be discreet so that elderly men don't try to get more than they are paying for.”

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 50 000 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. She said, “The job situation is miserable. No one can make any money any more, and the prostitution market is flooded.”

One care worker who used to work as a prostitute, like the women pictured above, said, “All I really had to change was the outfit”

Ms Zohren left the streets in the late 1990s to become a care worker before returning to help the women she left behind. “When I started looking after old men instead of young men, I found there were many similarities. 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. “Prostitution taught me to listen and to convey a feeling of safety,” she said. “Isn't that exactly what's missing so much in care for elderly people?”

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.

She said: “The people we talk to need to realise that prostitution can offer valid qualifications.”