Prostitution in Jordan is illegal but occurs. Authorities generally turn a blind eye. Prostitution occurs mainly in the larger cities and around refugee camps. It occurs on brothels, restaurants, night clubs and on the streets.
In the capital, Amman, there is a red-light district in the Jubaiha al-jubaiha:??????? One of the major streets in Jubeiha has been commonly called "Tallaini Street" meaning "the pick me up street". Local residents have tried to stop prostitution in the area. In , in an attempt to limit the number of prostitutes in Jordan, Jordan's Ministry of Interior announced a special visa scheme for women aged travelling alone from Ukraine, Estonia, Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Belarus, Uzbekistan and Armenia.
Protests from the tourist industry resulted in the scheme being withdrawn. Jordan is known for sex tourism in within the middle east. Instances of female sex tourism with Bedouin men have been reported at tourist sites in the Jordanian desert. Some Syrian refugees in Jordan have been reported to be working as prostitutes, including in the Zaatari refugee camp.
Jordan is a source and destination country for adults and children subjected to sex trafficking. Syrian refugees in Jordan continue to be highly vulnerable to trafficking. There have been reported cases of Syrian refugee women and girls sold into "temporary" or forced marriages to Jordanians and men from the Persian Gulf for the purpose of forced commercial sex. For example, in the government reported a case involving three Syrian girls and one Syrian woman who were forced by their father into temporary marriages--for the purpose of sexual exploitation--with a national from Saudi Arabia.
Syrian, Lebanese, North African, and Eastern European women may be forced into prostitution after migrating to Jordan to work in restaurants and nightclubs; some Jordanian women working in nightclubs may also be forced into prostitution. As reported by an NGO in , some Egyptian women are forced into prostitution by their Jordanian husbands.
