Kopino

According to a Filipino delegate to the 2005 ECPAT international conference, when the fathers of Kopinos return to South Korea, most of them stop contacting their children in the Philippines and no longer provide any form of support. The responsibility then falls on the Filipina mother to raise the child herself. The Philippines is a strongly Catholic nation, thus alternatives such as abortion and the use of contraceptives are stigmatised. As a result, Kopino children are often raised in single-parent households, without any contact with their Korean fathers. This problem is a consequence of sex tourism in the Philippines by Korean men, specifically within areas such as Angeles City. Since the fathers are not married to the mothers, the children are unable to obtain South Korean citizenship. As recently as 2003, Kopinos were believed to number fewer than 1,000; another 9,000 were born from 2003 to 2008.

According to a 2016 investigative report by The Sungkyun Times, one of the main causal factors of the Kopino phenomenon is Korean men, 90% of whom were students in their twenties, deceiving Filipino women about their intentions to have a future together. The South Korean television network MBC reported that on the island of Cebu, "most of the Korean men who solicit prostitution don't want to use a condom, causing prostitutes to get pregnant with their babies". ECPAT Korea classified the fathers of Kopinos into three broad categories: young men who went to the Philippines for the purpose of learning English, middle-aged men who travelled for business, and men who visited the Philippines in order to find prostitutes.

About 80% of Filipinos are Catholic, a religion that discourages the use of contraceptives and abortion, which contributes significantly to the birth of Kopino children. According to the 2016 investigative report, 90% of the women interviewed worked as English teachers or in other professions, not in the sex trade. However, according to MBC, "the majority of Kopinos [in Cebu] are born from hostess bars".

In 2015, a Korean man created a website, called KopinoFather, with pictures of Korean fathers, obtained from Filipina mothers, who had abandoned their Kopino children, for the purpose of locating them and holding them accountable. He also created a civic group, called We Love Kopino, through which Filipina mothers could submit pictures of the absentee fathers. The project stirred up some controversy due to a perceived invasion of privacy of the men, whose identities were revealed on the website.