“Sex Tourist” Fathers About To Be Tracked Down By Thousands Of Their Abandoned Children
A new documentary has highlighted a new project seeking to unite Filipino children with their foreign fathers.
ABC’s Four Corners recently published a new documentary titled Four Corners: Sex Tourism — My Father’s Secret, showing the efforts of Angeles Relief, an Australian organization, in aiding the children of sex workers left behind by Australian fathers.
Sex tourism occurs when individuals from other, usually wealthier, countries travel to other locations specifically to engage in sexual activity. While regulated sex work exists, sex workers in these countries are often victims of trafficking and/or underage, leaving them extremely vulnerable.
In the Philippines, abortion is illegal, and contraception is not often used, meaning many of these sex workers end up pregnant, often by foreign men engaging in sex tourism.
According to the documentary, it is estimated that fathers from other countries have left behind tens of thousands of mixed children, who usually grow up in poverty. One of the children highlighted, 17-year-old Luis, was born to a teenage mother who was also the child of an unknown foreign man.
His mother, like many other women, worked in the bars of Angeles City, which has become known for sex work.
The project takes children’s DNA and checks public databases for any matches, then uses social media to hunt down possible fathers. This is how Luis connected to his father, a wealthy businessman from New Zealand in his mid-70s.
Ultimately, the project aims to give these children support and a real chance at success in life, something that their biological fathers are now being contacted to aid in.
When I started this work, I thought it was about child support orders, about identities and nationalities but it’s not. It’s actually about the kids fulfilling their potential.
— Andrew MacLeod, humanitarian lawyer involved in the project
The documentary is currently only available on ABC’s iView platform, but will likely be uploaded to YouTube like other projects at a later date.
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