The children born after the sex tourists leaveIN ANGELES CITY, 80 kilometres north of Manila, a generation of children are growing up with no idea who their father is.
These children are the focus of a heart-breaking new photo series titled Dad is Gone.
Photographers Stephanie Borcard and Nicolas Metraux spent time in Angeles City in 2014, taking pictures of the children born from sex tourism. This particular area of the Philippines is known for its red-light district. Until 1991, the city was the home of Clark Air base, the largest US Air Base outside the United States of America. This saw an influx of brothels and “girlie bars” in the area, turning the city into one of the most popular sex tourism destinations.
Today, about 12,000 women are working in the bars that flank Fields Avenue.
Unlike in Thailand, international customers in the Philippines tend to seek a “girlfriend experience” that can last for several weeks or months.
Each year, thousands of children are born from these paid relationships. The fathers, whether American, Australian, British, German, Swiss, Korean or Japanese often abandon their offspring. In this very Catholic country, abortion is considered as a crime and punished by law.
Left behind, these children grow up in search of their own identity, where the father figure is still a question mark ...
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