In the city of Cúcuta, Colombia, the streets are lined with anonymous apartment blocks, their windows blacked out and metal gates bolted tight. Inside, each room is numbered, and in every one, a woman performs before a webcam — day and night, seven days a week. Their clients, watching from the US, Europe, and the UK, believe they are chatting with women in the privacy of their homes. In truth, many of these women are trapped in studios that run around the clock, generating billions for an industry built on exploitation.
According to The Times UK, Colombia has become one of the world’s sex-cam capitals, alongside Romania. The investigation found that while camming — live-streaming sexual performances for online viewers — is legal in Colombia, the lack of regulation has allowed widespread abuse to flourish. Victims described being imprisoned, raped, and forced to perform degrading acts for paying clients. Many were coerced into bondage through fabricated debts and deprived of their earnings by studio owners.
“I used to cry. It was horrible, horrible, to be forced to do things you didn’t want to do,” said Victoria, a 23-year-old former webcam model from Cúcuta. “It hurts, but you have to put up with it. It’s something very ugly.”
Industry insiders estimate that around 300,000 Colombian women have worked or are working as webcam models — roughly one in every 30 young women. The industry, once confined to small studios, now sprawls across the country, with between 10,000 and 15,000 legal establishments and tens of thousands more operating illegally. The sector is estimated to generate up to $2 billion a year, feeding entire families, neighbourhoods, and even criminal organisations.
During the pandemic, the trade exploded as unemployment soared and internet access expanded. Women saw a chance to earn a living; studio owners saw profit. Global platforms — largely based in the US and Europe — took the lion’s share of earnings, with models often receiving less than 10 percent of the money spent by clients.
Beneath the surface of the glossy marketing lies a system sustained by coercion. The Times UK found that many studios operate as modern-day brothels disguised as camming facilities. Monitors, often English-speaking men, control the models’ interactions, typing to clients on their behalf and directing every move from behind a screen. “Sometimes a user falls in love with a model,” one monitor said, “but they’re really in love with the monitor’s personality.”
Victoria’s story is one of the most harrowing. After being lured to a “studio job” that promised safety and good pay, she was instead enslaved in a flat with five other women. She was forced to perform violent acts on camera, beaten when she refused, and told she owed “debts” for food and supplies. Her captors even demanded she act like a child for certain clients. “It may be pleasure for them,” she said, “but for us it’s pain.”
A report by Human Rights Watch confirmed that such abuses are common, including the use of adult accounts to stream underage performers. Many victims are Venezuelan refugees, desperate for work and easily exploited by traffickers who promise them stability. “They’re enslaved,” said one studio pioneer interviewed by The Times UK.
Activists say criminal groups, including guerrilla factions and drug cartels, now tax or directly profit from the illegal cam industry. Aid workers who have reported child exploitation cases have faced threats. Despite this, platforms such as Chaturbate, LiveJasmin, and Stripchat maintain that they have strict safeguards against underage or coerced performers.
Victoria eventually escaped when her captors allowed her to leave for medical treatment. She fled through the streets and found refuge with a charity. Now studying fashion design, she still struggles to survive. “Sometimes I go back to the park and do what I know I shouldn’t,” she said quietly. “I don’t want to, but it’s my reality.”
As Colombia’s camming empire continues to grow, millions of users across the world log in each night, unaware — or unwilling to know — that behind many of those glowing screens lies a story of violence, poverty, and stolen freedom.
