Zaatari, Jordan: Despite strong traditions against sex outside marriage, prostitution takes place in the Arab world, as in other regions, though it is largely more hidden.
While there may be known cruising areas in cities, overt red-light districts are rare, and some prostitutes even wear face veils to hide their activities. Arrangements can be made by phone, and short-term or informal marriages are sometimes used as a cover for prostitution or sex trafficking.
Eleven Syrian prostitutes who talked to the AP in the refugee camp, a border town and three Jordanian cities asked to remain anonymous, citing shame and fear of prosecution by police in Jordan. Prostitution in Jordan is illegal and punishable by up to three years in jail, and foreign women and men found guilty can be deported. The majority of the 11 women say they turned to prostitution out of a desperate need for money.
It’s impossible to pin down how many Syrian refugees are now working as prostitutes in Jordan, but their presence is inescapable. Syrian women outnumbered those from any other country in several brothels, and in a couple of cases, virtually all the prostitutes were Syrian.
Pimps say they have more women who are Syrian than of other nationalities. The influx of Syrian women has been noticed by the competition: A 37-year-old Jordanian woman running a chain of at least seven brothels in northern Jordan complained that they were taking over the business.
“Men have been asking for Syrian women because they like the blonde and light-skinned among them, and the chances that they may create problems, like blackmailing married Jordanian men, are almost nonexistent,” she says. “My policy has been, you either befriend them so that they’d work with you, or get rid of them by tipping police about them.”
Jordanian police also say dozens of Syrian women now work in prostitution.
On one day last month they arrested 11 women, eight of them Syrian, at a coffee shop in Irbid for alleged “indecent public behaviour.”
