Filming in dirty, bug-infested rooms with scant breaks and shared sex toys: Colombia's 'webcam models' are speaking out about abuse in one of the world's top providers of adult webcam content. Filming in dirty, bug-infested rooms with scant breaks and shared sex toys: Colombia's "webcam models" are speaking out about abuse in one of the world's top providers of adult webcam content.
Despite their clients being thousands of kilometers miles away -- mainly in the United States and Europe -- many webcam sex workers say they have suffered physical and emotional mistreatment. Some studio bosses in Colombia, they say, prey on cis and transgender women from poor backgrounds, with low education levels, or single mothers trying to make ends meet.
If not, they took a percentage of my money," year-old Paula Osorio told AFP at an upmarket webcam studio in Bogota, recounting her start in the industry at another, lower-end adult platform five years ago. Last December, Human Rights Watch HRW documented claims of "abusive, unhygienic working conditions and coercion to perform nonconsensual sex acts" in a report focusing on the plight of "webcam models" in Colombia. Tens of thousands of Colombians are estimated to be employed in the sector, broadcasting adult content to clients around the globe.
In general, platforms keep between 50 and 65 percent of what viewers pay, according to HRW, but in Colombia many sex workers claimed to get as little as 30 percent of the earnings. Tania Rios, a mother of two small children, told AFP she has had many bad experiences that she preferred not to recount. In its report based on interviews with sex workers in the cities of Bogota, Cali, Medellin and Palmira, the HRW said it was alerted to models working hour shifts without breaks and coerced into degrading, traumatizing or painful sex acts at some studios.
Investigators contacted four platforms named in the report, three of which said they had measures in place to combat human trafficking and child sex abuse, but denied responsibility for abuses at studios where the content is filmed. Sergio Rueda, a manager at Gold Line Studios, told AFP it was true that many low-budget "garage studios" treated women poorly, but not his.
