A study conducted among the Venezuelan immigrant population in Colombia has shown the rise of the “webcam houses” in the border areaswhere about 12,000 people are dedicated to recording themselves in sexual activities that they later “sell” to foreign consumers through the Internet.
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The “Sex for Survival” study was presented today in New York by the organization Aid for Aids, born in this city as an organization to support communities vulnerable to HIV and which usually carries out campaigns to support people who perform sex work.
In this case, the study was carried out between 2021 and 2022 by the Colombian section of the NGO, which interviewed 500 Venezuelans who engage in some type of sexual activity to survive, both heterosexual and homosexual and trans.
The founder of Aid for Aids, Jesús Aguais, himself a Venezuelan, explained to EFE that the reason for the study to be presented in New York is to alert that what happened in Colombian territory can perfectly be reproduced in this cityafter the arrival of thousands of Venezuelan refugees in recent months who seek their own survival strategies.
Sex with webcams for foreign clients
One of the most booming phenomena is the “webcam houses” where immigrants have sex with each other (heterosexual but above all homosexual) and agree to be recorded for web pages with mainly American and European clients who pay per minute of connection.
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Only in the towns of Cúcuta and Villa del Rosario, near the border with Venezuela, find between 800 and 1,000 houses dedicated to what is called “webcam modeling”, and in each of them groups of 5 to 20 people work, generally boys between the ages of 16 and 25.
This activity is not illegal when it is considered that its participants do it voluntarily, and the Colombian police only intervene in these houses when they have evidence that trafficking is practiced or that minors are exploited.
Only in the towns of Cúcuta and Villa del Rosario, near the border with Venezuela, find between 800 and 1,000 houses dedicated to what is called “webcam modeling”, and groups of 5 to 20 people work in each of them, generally boys between the ages of 16 and 25.
This activity is not illegal when it is considered that its participants do it voluntarily, and the Colombian police only intervene in these houses when they have evidence that trafficking is being practiced or that minors are being exploited.
Disinformation and coercion
The second space where survival sex is most practiced it is more similar to classic prostitution: they are almost always women or transsexuals who, after having tried an activity as street vendors or in beauty salons in exchange for very low wages, receive a much better paid sexual proposal one day on the street and then cannot get out of there.
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The study includes four reasons that push these people to the sex trade: absence of documents that allow legal work, lack of job offers for reasons of xenophobia, lack of job placement institutions and lack of clear information on means of social assistance.
In fact, many of the respondents they believe they lack the most basic rights just because they are illegal immigrantsand for this reason they do not dare to denounce when they enter into situations of domination, fall into the power of mafias or are mistreated by a client.
Nor does the attitude of the Colombian police help, which practices “harassment, persecution and violation of rights” according to numerous testimonies from those interviewed, even going as far as rape when they raid sex workers.
In addition, 14% of the interviewees (in this case women) say that different immigration or public order officials have forced them to have sexual relations, or perform oral sex on them, in exchange for offering a service to which they are entitled.
Of the total number of immigrants surveyed, the average number of people with whom they have had a sexual relationship is 16, and a quarter of them admit to having had sex without a condom, with the consequent risk of sexually transmitted diseases.
EFE
