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A South Korean man who deceived his Filipino partner by claiming to live in Pyongyang is one of several fathers recently exposed for refusing or failing to pay child maintenance after escaping to their home country. The identities of these defaulters were revealed by Koo Bon-chang, an activist and founder of “Bad Fathers”, a website that publishes personal details of parents who dodge child support, in a bid to trace them. “We are looking for fathers who each left for Korea after having a daughter born in 2010, a son born in 2014, and a daughter born in 2018,” Koo said in a social media post last week. According to him, a child of Korean and Filipino heritage born in 2018 could not afford medical care due to financial hardship. Koo formerly headed a civic organisation in the Philippines providing legal aid to mothers in child support litigation, the Korea JoongAng Daily reported. One of the men reportedly told the child’s mother that he lived in the North Korean capital, Koo added. He became a father while pursuing a course in the Philippines before bolting to South Korea. The activist, who renamed his website “Rights of Child” in 2021, shared a message from the mother appealing for help. More than 200 couples have settled their child support disputes after their personal details were disclosed online, according to the website. Last year, South Korea’s Supreme Court upheld a lower court verdict that suspended a 1 million won (US$695) fine against Koo for defaming five people by divulging their faces and other data. Under South Korean law, anyone who deliberately tarnishes the reputation of another person by leaking information about them online can be sentenced to up to three years in prison or fined up to 30 million won. While Koo’s “actions also amounted to a private sanction that seriously violated the victims’ rights”, he “played a role in shaping public opinion on the social issue of unpaid child support”, the court said. His advocacy has prompted the ministry of gender equality and family to offer similar help, but without releasing photos of deadbeat parents. The Philippines is also home to tens of thousands of “Amerasians” fathered by US soldiers who served in the Southeast Asian nation. The country hosted the American military’s biggest overseas bases until they closed down in 1992. Bars and massage parlours were typically the meeting places for the servicemen and the women who would give birth to unknown children and often abandon them.
