First modification:
In Cúcuta, a Colombian city bordering Venezuela, the Covid-19 pandemic has brought with it many changes. In recent months, a business has stood out in the capital of Santander, turning Cúcuta into the main headquarters of the business for adults known as ‘webcam’.
How does it work? The women who work in this trade, known as ‘cammodels’, serve clients through a web platform. Equipped with a camera, a computer and lighting equipment, these “models” offer sexual favors to their users who interact with them through chat.
In this business, the line between entertainment and prostitution is very thin. Reinel Robayo owns one of those houses. According to him, his business is distorted: “Camera modeling is a benefit, it is an accompaniment that we as a company, or the girls, give to consumers. There is never physical contact, we never accept real meetings, this is totally prohibited. Everything is managed through the network.”
Most of the women who work with Reinel are Venezuelan, he assures that they all have their papers in order and are of legal age.
“Valentine” is one of them. This 25-year-old Venezuelan has been working as a model for three years and earns an average of 1,500 dollars a month. A sum that she could not reach in her country of origin.
She takes on her job and says that she likes it. But she acknowledges that certain requests from her clients can be very strange: “If I don’t feel good, I don’t do it. I just tell them ‘Hey look I don’t do this’ and they respect you and say ‘Ah ok that’s fine, I’ll find someone else’. So there they are. All up to you.”
In recent months, several scandals have been highlighted due to the presence of minors in these types of houses. And according to feminist associations there is trafficking in women to feed these businesses.
Alejandra Vera is the director of the corporation Mujer Denuncia y Muévete. For her, working as a webcam is assimilated to that of prostitution: “The defenders of webcams say ‘Oh, but they are not going to be raped because the man is not physically there.’ They do not rape them, but they are profiting from the sexualization of their bodies. The fact that there is not the rapist, the aggressor, the man humiliating the woman’s body to please himself does not mean that there is a camera. And worse because it is recorded. This content will never be deleted. And this content possibly becomes the weapon to threaten them and continue them in sexual violence.”
Andrea is now 19 years old, with no other option to survive when she left Venezuela, she started prostitution at the age of 15, she was also a webcam model. “I feel humiliated because I don’t think that as a woman you have to submit to that to get money. And it’s something humiliating because it happens every day and it’s both emotionally and psychologically exhausting,” says Andrea, who fears that one day the videos in which she appears will come to light again and that her children or a family member may see them.
Cúcuta is today the main Colombian city for webcam modeling. The pandemic and the crisis in Venezuela made it surpass cities like Medellín or Bogotá. Alejandra Vera complements: “We are in a border territory, the women who arrive in the country are migrant women and they are the most vulnerable. Without ignoring the victims of the armed conflict, impoverished women, but literally migrant women and at this time, girls, are the most vulnerable.”
Between economic need and psychological trauma, the women involved have to live, in one way or another, with this form of violence.
First modification:
In Cúcuta, a Colombian city bordering Venezuela, the Covid-19 pandemic has brought with it many changes. In recent months, a business has stood out in the capital of Santander, turning Cúcuta into the main headquarters of the business for adults known as ‘webcam’.
How does it work? The women who work in this trade, known as ‘cammodels’, serve clients through a web platform. Equipped with a camera, a computer and lighting equipment, these “models” offer sexual favors to their users who interact with them through chat.
In this business, the line between entertainment and prostitution is very thin. Reinel Robayo owns one of those houses. According to him, his business is distorted: “Camera modeling is a benefit, it is an accompaniment that we as a company, or the girls, give to consumers. There is never physical contact, we never accept real meetings, this is totally prohibited. Everything is managed through the network.”
Most of the women who work with Reinel are Venezuelan, he assures that they all have their papers in order and are of legal age.
“Valentine” is one of them. This 25-year-old Venezuelan has been working as a model for three years and earns an average of 1,500 dollars a month. A sum that she could not reach in her country of origin.
She takes on her job and says that she likes it. But she acknowledges that certain requests from her clients can be very strange: “If I don’t feel good, I don’t do it. I just tell them ‘Hey look I don’t do this’ and they respect you and say ‘Ah ok that’s fine, I’ll find someone else’. So there they are. All up to you.”
In recent months, several scandals have been highlighted due to the presence of minors in these types of houses. And according to feminist associations there is trafficking in women to feed these businesses.
Alejandra Vera is the director of the corporation Mujer Denuncia y Muévete. For her, working as a webcam is assimilated to that of prostitution: “The defenders of webcams say ‘Oh, but they are not going to be raped because the man is not physically there.’ They do not rape them, but they are profiting from the sexualization of their bodies. The fact that there is not the rapist, the aggressor, the man humiliating the woman’s body to please himself does not mean that there is a camera. And worse because it is recorded. This content will never be deleted. And this content possibly becomes the weapon to threaten them and continue them in sexual violence.”
Andrea is now 19 years old, with no other option to survive when she left Venezuela, she started prostitution at the age of 15, she was also a webcam model. “I feel humiliated because I don’t think that as a woman you have to submit to that to get money. And it’s something humiliating because it happens every day and it’s both emotionally and psychologically exhausting,” says Andrea, who fears that one day the videos in which she appears will come to light again and that her children or a family member may see them.
Cúcuta is today the main Colombian city for webcam modeling. The pandemic and the crisis in Venezuela made it surpass cities like Medellín or Bogotá. Alejandra Vera complements: “We are in a border territory, the women who arrive in the country are migrant women and they are the most vulnerable. Without ignoring the victims of the armed conflict, impoverished women, but literally migrant women and at this time, girls, are the most vulnerable.”
Between economic need and psychological trauma, the women involved have to live, in one way or another, with this form of violence.
First modification:
In Cúcuta, a Colombian city bordering Venezuela, the Covid-19 pandemic has brought with it many changes. In recent months, a business has stood out in the capital of Santander, turning Cúcuta into the main headquarters of the business for adults known as ‘webcam’.
How does it work? The women who work in this trade, known as ‘cammodels’, serve clients through a web platform. Equipped with a camera, a computer and lighting equipment, these “models” offer sexual favors to their users who interact with them through chat.
In this business, the line between entertainment and prostitution is very thin. Reinel Robayo owns one of those houses. According to him, his business is distorted: “Camera modeling is a benefit, it is an accompaniment that we as a company, or the girls, give to consumers. There is never physical contact, we never accept real meetings, this is totally prohibited. Everything is managed through the network.”
Most of the women who work with Reinel are Venezuelan, he assures that they all have their papers in order and are of legal age.
“Valentine” is one of them. This 25-year-old Venezuelan has been working as a model for three years and earns an average of 1,500 dollars a month. A sum that she could not reach in her country of origin.
She takes on her job and says that she likes it. But she acknowledges that certain requests from her clients can be very strange: “If I don’t feel good, I don’t do it. I just tell them ‘Hey look I don’t do this’ and they respect you and say ‘Ah ok that’s fine, I’ll find someone else’. So there they are. All up to you.”
In recent months, several scandals have been highlighted due to the presence of minors in these types of houses. And according to feminist associations there is trafficking in women to feed these businesses.
Alejandra Vera is the director of the corporation Mujer Denuncia y Muévete. For her, working as a webcam is assimilated to that of prostitution: “The defenders of webcams say ‘Oh, but they are not going to be raped because the man is not physically there.’ They do not rape them, but they are profiting from the sexualization of their bodies. The fact that there is not the rapist, the aggressor, the man humiliating the woman’s body to please himself does not mean that there is a camera. And worse because it is recorded. This content will never be deleted. And this content possibly becomes the weapon to threaten them and continue them in sexual violence.”
Andrea is now 19 years old, with no other option to survive when she left Venezuela, she started prostitution at the age of 15, she was also a webcam model. “I feel humiliated because I don’t think that as a woman you have to submit to that to get money. And it’s something humiliating because it happens every day and it’s both emotionally and psychologically exhausting,” says Andrea, who fears that one day the videos in which she appears will come to light again and that her children or a family member may see them.
Cúcuta is today the main Colombian city for webcam modeling. The pandemic and the crisis in Venezuela made it surpass cities like Medellín or Bogotá. Alejandra Vera complements: “We are in a border territory, the women who arrive in the country are migrant women and they are the most vulnerable. Without ignoring the victims of the armed conflict, impoverished women, but literally migrant women and at this time, girls, are the most vulnerable.”
Between economic need and psychological trauma, the women involved have to live, in one way or another, with this form of violence.
First modification:
In Cúcuta, a Colombian city bordering Venezuela, the Covid-19 pandemic has brought with it many changes. In recent months, a business has stood out in the capital of Santander, turning Cúcuta into the main headquarters of the business for adults known as ‘webcam’.
How does it work? The women who work in this trade, known as ‘cammodels’, serve clients through a web platform. Equipped with a camera, a computer and lighting equipment, these “models” offer sexual favors to their users who interact with them through chat.
In this business, the line between entertainment and prostitution is very thin. Reinel Robayo owns one of those houses. According to him, his business is distorted: “Camera modeling is a benefit, it is an accompaniment that we as a company, or the girls, give to consumers. There is never physical contact, we never accept real meetings, this is totally prohibited. Everything is managed through the network.”
Most of the women who work with Reinel are Venezuelan, he assures that they all have their papers in order and are of legal age.
“Valentine” is one of them. This 25-year-old Venezuelan has been working as a model for three years and earns an average of 1,500 dollars a month. A sum that she could not reach in her country of origin.
She takes on her job and says that she likes it. But she acknowledges that certain requests from her clients can be very strange: “If I don’t feel good, I don’t do it. I just tell them ‘Hey look I don’t do this’ and they respect you and say ‘Ah ok that’s fine, I’ll find someone else’. So there they are. All up to you.”
In recent months, several scandals have been highlighted due to the presence of minors in these types of houses. And according to feminist associations there is trafficking in women to feed these businesses.
Alejandra Vera is the director of the corporation Mujer Denuncia y Muévete. For her, working as a webcam is assimilated to that of prostitution: “The defenders of webcams say ‘Oh, but they are not going to be raped because the man is not physically there.’ They do not rape them, but they are profiting from the sexualization of their bodies. The fact that there is not the rapist, the aggressor, the man humiliating the woman’s body to please himself does not mean that there is a camera. And worse because it is recorded. This content will never be deleted. And this content possibly becomes the weapon to threaten them and continue them in sexual violence.”
Andrea is now 19 years old, with no other option to survive when she left Venezuela, she started prostitution at the age of 15, she was also a webcam model. “I feel humiliated because I don’t think that as a woman you have to submit to that to get money. And it’s something humiliating because it happens every day and it’s both emotionally and psychologically exhausting,” says Andrea, who fears that one day the videos in which she appears will come to light again and that her children or a family member may see them.
Cúcuta is today the main Colombian city for webcam modeling. The pandemic and the crisis in Venezuela made it surpass cities like Medellín or Bogotá. Alejandra Vera complements: “We are in a border territory, the women who arrive in the country are migrant women and they are the most vulnerable. Without ignoring the victims of the armed conflict, impoverished women, but literally migrant women and at this time, girls, are the most vulnerable.”
Between economic need and psychological trauma, the women involved have to live, in one way or another, with this form of violence.