Prostitutes in Germany are being given the chance to retrain as geriatric
nurses.

About 30 prostitutes, aged 20 to 40, are to take up a two-year training
course for auxiliary nurses in North Rhine Westphalia, reports the
Telegraph.

The scheme, funded by the church and the EU, is aimed at easing a chronic
shortfall in nurses as well as offering an alternative to prostitutes.

One trainee, Angelika, who is in her late 30s and worked in Bochum as a
prostitute for six years said she had found the transition very smooth: "I’m
feeling good," she said.

Sex is big business in Germany. With some 400,000 prostitutes
and an annual 1.2 million men who use their services, the yearly turnover has
hit a massive €14 billion ($16.5 billion). But paid sex can be a nasty
business.

In 2002 the German government
introduced a new prostitution law in what was an earnest attempt to
protect prostitutes’ working conditions and even offer them some protection
against violence and exploitation.

Rita Kühn, of the protestant church’s welfare programme, said: "They are in
general very good at dealing with people, in addition to which they don’t get
squeamish and have absolutely no fear about touching or being touched."