A woman in a velvet bodysuit sits cross-legged on a bed in a studio decorated to look like a hotel room, her feet tucked under her knees and a laptop resting on her legs. She is on camera for eight hours or more a day broadcasting to clients paying between $2 and $10 per minute to talk with her. The video chat industry has become one of Romania’s biggest businesses. It is driven by a mix of poverty, an abundance of underemployed English-speaking women and exceptionally high internet speeds.
For the cam girls, the job is highly profitable. They earn a monthly after-tax salary that is roughly ten times the average Romanian salary. And if they work from home, the pay can be even higher.
It’s a business that’s notoriously difficult to police, especially in Romania. A Romanian journalist who has written extensively about the adult industry says many of its models are forced into it by their boyfriends, and that studio owners often encourage them to deceive their clients for financial gain.
The sex-cam industry isn’t illegal, but it is not regulated or taxed, so the models are essentially self-employed and operate outside the law. In some cases, the studios supply the women with technology-computers, cameras and lights-and props like costumes or sex toys, and the models split a percentage of their income according to a contract.
Some studios are small and have just a few rooms; others are sprawling operations in Bucharest with 16 or more rooms and up to 100 models working in three shifts. But for the most part, cam girls make their money from private sessions with individual clients. The majority of these clients are from the United States, but some are also from Europe and Latin America.
In some cases, the model and client will meet up off-camera, and in other instances, a woman may even move to another country to be with a client. One former LiveJasmin model said she moved to Dubai to be with a client, while another cam girl ended up marrying a man she met on the site.
The Tate sisters were arrested this month, but their case is just the tip of an iceberg. Hundreds of Romanian women are streaming on webcams, and the number is growing rapidly. The popularity of TikTok, where users can connect with other people through a phone’s camera, has boosted the numbers.
While it’s not always clear whether these women are being exploited or not, the fact remains that the vast majority of them would be hard-pressed to find other employment. For Lana, 31, who has been camming for two years, it has provided enough income to raise her daughter alone and consider investing her savings in something “that will bring money to the country”.
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