Fallen Angels

True Cost of Sex Tourism: Philippine's Fatherless Kids

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Until 1991 there used to be a US air force base in Angeles City in the Philippines. These days it is a well-known sex tourism destination, where mostly wealthy retired men from all over the world go to get a taste of Philippine women. Angeles City could easily pass for a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah.

Hundreds of local young women work in the bars and nightclubs that are common to this place. They offer sex in exchange for the money they desperately need to survive. The bars only hire young women, so as soon as they reach a certain age, some are forced to quit their jobs.

A lot of the young call girls prefer the older clients because they seem more willing to pay extra and cater to their every whim. Sometimes the younger tourists become violent and hurt the girls and there are rumors of call girls getting murdered and their bodies hidden.

However, the real victims are the children that have been fathered by these foreign travellers. There is little to no chance that the children will ever find or get to know their dads. The saddest part is that these children live in extreme poverty in the Philippines, while their biological fathers are more than likely somewhere on a golf course or in a fancy office wondering where to invest their money next.

Because they are mixed-race, these children easily stand out in the crowd. Sometimes they are teased and bullied because most locals can identify them as the product of a sex tourist and a call girl. Ironically, it’s not something that the women try to avoid, either. And many times more than one female in a family has been through the same situation. The poverty is so great that they are willing to do whatever it takes to make some money to buy food for their families.

The young women who work at the bars and nightclubs tend to demand that their clients wear condoms during sex, however these men lie often. One woman recalls that her daughter’s father told her he’d had a vasectomy. Another woman says she was very drunk and was probably raped by her child’s father.

Selling their bodies seems to be a way to escape from poverty. Still most of the women continue to live in ghettos even though they wear expensive fancy clothes to go to work.

This documentary explores the complex lives of the Filipino call girls and their mixed children. Watch it now.