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.
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Despite their clients being thousands of kilometres 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.
“They forced us to do 12 hours (of broadcasts) a day. If not, they took a percentage of my money,” Paula Osorio, 25, told AFP at an upmarket webcam studio in Bogota, recounting her start in the industry at another, lower-end adult platform five years ago.
“I started working there to earn enough to eat, and they took advantage of that because I had nowhere else to go.”
Sex work is legal in the South American country, which has a high rate of informal employment – about 55 per cent – and a low minimum wage of around US$320 per month.