One afternoon, as Isabella left school for the day, someone thrust a leaflet into her hand. "Do you want to make money with your beauty?" it asked. She says a studio looking for models seemed to be targeting teenage pupils in her area in Bogotá, Colombia's capital. At 17, with a two-year-old son to support, she desperately needed money, so went along to find out more. She says when she got there, it was a sexcam studio, run by a couple in a house in a run-down neighbourhood – it had eight rooms decorated like bedrooms. Studios range from small, low-budget operations to large businesses with individual rooms set up with lights, computers, webcams and an internet connection. Models perform sexual acts which are streamed to viewers around the world, who message them and make requests via intermediaries, also known as monitors. The next day Isabella, whose real name we are not using, says she started work – even though it is illegal in Colombia for studios to employ webcam models under 18. She told the BBC World Service there was no written contract detailing how much she would be paid or what her rights were. "They had me streaming without teaching me anything. They said, 'Here's the camera, let's go.'" Isabella says the studio soon suggested she do a livestream from school, so as classmates around her were learning English, she quietly took out her phone and started to film herself at her desk. She describes how viewers began to ask her to perform specific sexual acts, so she asked her teacher for permission to go to the toilet and, locked in a cubicle, did what the customers had requested. Her teacher had no idea what was happening, "so I started doing it from other classes", says Isabella. "I kept thinking, 'It's for my child. I'm doing it for him.' That gave me the strength." The global sexcam industry is booming. The number of monthly views of webcam platforms globally has more than tripled since 2017, reaching nearly 1.3 billion, in April 2025, according to analytics firm Semrush. Colombia is now estimated to have more models than any other country – 400,000 – and 12,000 sexcam studios, according to Fenalweb, an organisation representing the country's adult webcam sector. These studios film performers and feed the content to global webcam platforms, which broadcast to millions of paying viewers around the world who make requests of models, give tips and buy them gifts. Many of the models who work in studios do so because they lack privacy, equipment or a stable internet connection at home – often if they're poor or young and still living with parents. Performers told the BBC that studios often try to attract people with the promise of making easy money in a country where a third of the population lives in poverty. Models explained that while some studios are well run and offer performers technical and other support, abuse is rife at unscrupulous operators. And Colombia's President, Gustavo Petro, has described studio owners as "slave masters" who trick women and girls, like Isabella, into believing they can earn good money. The four biggest webcam platforms that stream material from the studios, BongaCams, Chaturbate, LiveJasmin and StripChat, which are based in Europe and the United States, have checks that are supposed to ensure performers are 18 or older. EU and US laws prohibit the distribution of sexually explicit material involving anyone under 18. But models told the BBC these checks are too easily sidestepped if a studio wants to employ under-age girls. They say one way of doing this is to "recycle" old accounts of models who are of legal age but no longer perform, and give them to under-age girls. Isabella says this is how she was able to appear on both Chaturbate and StripChat when she was 17. "The studio owner said it was no problem that I was under-age," Isabella, now 18, says. "She used the account of another woman, and then I started working under that identity." Other models the BBC spoke to say they were given fake IDs by studios. One, Keiny, says this enabled her to appear on BongaCams when she was 17. Milley Achinte, a BongaCams representative in Colombia, told the BBC they do not allow under-18s to perform and they shut accounts that break this rule. She added that the platform checks IDs on a Colombian government website and if a "model contacts us and we are aware that the model left the studio, we give them their password so they can close their account". In a statement, Chaturbate said it has "categorically" stopped the use of fake IDs, and models must regularly submit live images of themselves standing next to government-issued photo IDs, which are checked digitally and manually. It said it has "an average of one reviewer to fewer than 10 broadcasters" and any attempt to recycle accounts "would be unsuccessful" because "the age verification process continues as each and every broadcast is constantly reviewed and checked". StripChat also sent a statement saying it has a "zero-tolerance policy regarding under-age models" and that performers "must undergo a thorough age verification process", adding that its in-house moderation team works with third-party verification services to "validate models' identities". It said that recycled accounts cannot be used on its platform, and recent changes to its rules mean that the account holder must be present on every stream. "So, if a model moves to a new account to work independently, the original account tied to them becomes inactive and unusable by the studio." LiveJasmin did not respond to the BBC's requests for comment. Keiny is now 20 and works from her bedroom at home in Medellín – streaming through another studio which provides a route to big international platforms. And if it wasn't for the high-tech equipment – several ring lights, a camera, and a large screen – this could pass for a child's room. There are about a dozen stuffed animals, pink unicorns and teddy bears. Viewers "really like it when you look young", she says. "Sometimes I think that's problematic. Some clients ask that you act like an actual child, and that's not OK." She says she got into the business to help her family financially after her parents decided to divorce. Her father knows what she's doing and she says he's supportive. Looking back, Keiny thinks she was too young when she started at the age of 17, but even so, she isn't critical of her former employers. Instead, she believes they helped her into a job which she says now earns her about $2,000 (£1,500) a month – far more than the minimum wage in Colombia, which is about $300 (£225) a month. "Thanks to this job, I'm helping my mum, my dad, and my sister – my whole family," she says. That point of view is echoed by the studios – some of which are keen to demonstrate they look after their performers. We visited one of the biggest, AJ Studios, where we were introduced to an in-house psychologist, employed to support models' mental health. We were also shown a spa which offers pedicures, massages, botox and lip fillers at a "discount" or as prizes for "employees of the month" who may be high earners or people who are collaborative and support fellow models. But as the country's president has pointed out, not every performer is treated well or makes good money. And the industry is waiting to see if his new labour law will pave the way for tighter regulations. Models and studios told the BBC that streaming platforms typically take 50% of the fees paid by viewers, studios take 20-30%, and the models get what's left. This means that if a show makes $100 (£75), the model would usually get between $20 (£15) and $30 (£22). They explained that unscrupulous studios often take much more. Models say there have been times when they logged on for sessions of up to eight hours and made as little as $5 (£4) – which can happen if a performance doesn't have many viewers. Others say they have been pressured into streaming for up to 18 hours without breaks and fined for stopping to eat or go to the toilet. These accounts are supported by a report from the campaign group Human Rights Watch, published in December 2024. The author, Erin Kilbride, who did additional research on this story for the BBC, found some people were being filmed in cramped, dirty cubicles infested with bedbugs and cockroaches and were being coerced into performing sexual acts they found painful and degrading. Sofi, a mother-of-two from Medellín, had been a waitress in a nightclub but, fed up with being insulted by customers, moved into webcam modelling. But the 26-year-old says a studio she worked for pressured her into carrying out painful and degrading sexual acts, including performing with three other girls. She explains that these requests were made by customers and agreed to by studio monitors – the staff employed to act as intermediaries between models and viewers. Sofi says she told the studio she didn't want to perform these acts, "but they said I had no choice". "In the end, I had to do it because it was either that, or they would ban my account," she adds, explaining that means her account would effectively be closed down. Sofi continues working in webcam studios because she says a typical salary in Colombia would not be enough to support her and her two children. She is now saving to start a law degree. It's not just Colombia that is facing these issues, says Erin Kilbride. She found that between them, the big four streaming platforms also broadcast material from studios in 10 more countries – Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Hungary, India, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Ukraine, and the US. And she says she identified "gaps in platform policies and protocols that facilitate or exacerbate human rights abuses". When we asked platforms about conditions at the studios they stream, Milley Achinte from BongaCams said she is part of a team of eight women who visit some studios in Colombia "making sure that the models are getting paid, that the rooms are clean, that models are not getting violated". StripChat and Chaturbate do not visit studios and said they are not direct employers of performers and therefore do not intervene in the terms set between studios and models. But they both told us they are committed to a safe working environment. StripChat also said it expects studios to ensure "respectful and comfortable working conditions". BongaCams, StripChat and Chaturbate all said they have teams to intervene if they believe a model is being forced or coerced to do something. After two months of waking up at 05:00 to juggle webcamming, secondary school, and caring for her son, Isabella says she was eager to receive her first payment. But after the platform and the studio took their cut, Isabella explains she was paid just 174,000 Colombian pesos ($42; £31) – far less than she expected. She believes that the studio paid her a much lower percentage than agreed and also stole most of her earnings. The money was a pittance, she says, adding that she used some of it to buy milk and nappies. "They deceived me." Isabella, who is still at school, only worked as a webcam model for a few months before quitting. The way she says she was treated at such a young age left her deeply traumatised. She couldn't stop crying, so her mother arranged for her to see a psychologist. She and six other former employees of the studio have got together to file an official complaint with the state prosecutor's office. Collectively, they have accused the studio of exploitation of minors, labour exploitation and economic abuse. "There are video recordings of me still online, under-age," she says, explaining she feels powerless when it comes to trying to get them removed. "It's affected me a lot and I don't want to think about it any more." Additional reporting by Woody Morris
Sursă: BBC News
