Sex work is big business in the Philippines, but with contraception often not used and abortion illegal, there can be long-term consequences. Thanks to a trailblazing Australian-led project, children's DNA is now being used to identify their fathers, track them down, and demand child support. Grace Tobin has more.
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00:00These are children who are born into poverty conditions in the Philippines and their mums
00:08are often still relying on sex work as a form of income, but not only that, not only the
00:14conditions that they're growing up in, it's also they're born biracial, there's a lot
00:18of stigma that surrounds their identity as well.
00:22These men are from many countries, Australia and New Zealand included.
00:26Can you tell me about this Australian-led project?
00:28Yeah, it's an extraordinary project and it's using the sort of DNA technology that a lot
00:34of us are now familiar with because of these DNA ancestry sites, so it essentially works
00:40in the same way.
00:41DNA saliva swabs often are taken from the kids and then they're fed into these commercially
00:46available databases and from there the team is starting to narrow down and track down
00:52who the potential fathers are through relatives.
00:55And so they use public records for instance, social media to narrow this down and find
01:03the dads, some of which are here in Australia.
01:06And what happens when they do find these dads?
01:08Look, it can be complex and it's certainly been a mixed bag of outcomes as you'll see
01:13in the show tonight.
01:14Some of the fathers are very reluctant and very shocked to have anything to do with these
01:20children that they have in the Philippines.
01:22On the other hand, we do have a really positive outcome for one of these kids.
01:27His father is a wealthy businessman from New Zealand who's surprisingly accepted him as
01:33his child and is now supporting him financially.
01:37These projects can have a big effect on the women and children as you've just said, but
01:41what about the industry as a whole?
01:42Yeah, look, it's a really complex situation in the Philippines where sex work is illegal
01:48anyway and so the women themselves have very little protection when it comes to falling
01:53pregnant to a foreign man.
01:55And so that situation is not going to resolve itself anytime soon.
02:01I suppose a project like this though, it can act as a huge disincentive to Western men
02:06who are going to countries like the Philippines and think that they can get away with impregnating
02:12a local sex worker and abandoning that child.
02:16More tonight on Four Corners on the ABC.
02:19Grace Tobin, thank you so much.