Children engendered by occupying soldiers
Name(s):
Abandoned children of foreign soldiers
Nature
During periods of war or occupation of territories by foreign armed forces, or in association with military bases during peacetime, soldiers establish temporary or semi-permanent liaisons with local women, usually during their brief recreation periods from military duties. When children are born of such relationships, the fathers may not accept paternity or may already have moved to other locations or have returned to their home country. Such children grow up without a father (although a proportion also lose their mothers as casualties of war), often with the additional stigma of being physically distinct from their peers, if the father was of a different racial type. Their emotional growth may be further distorted by the vain hope that they may be successfully reunited by the father, and the rejection they experience from their peers.
Incidence
Such children are engendered as a result of most extended military conflicts. In past soldiers have been tacitly encouraged to force the women of the occupied territories to bear children bearing the genes of the occupying force as a means of extending and maintaining the domination of that culture. The most striking recent case is that of the children of members of the USA armed forces based in Viet-Nam or vacationing in Bangkok. Such children born in the 1970s, are now adolescents, and recognizably non-Asiatic although speaking little of their fathers language. Many live in the hope of being recognized by fathers they have never seen who will care for them in the USA. In 1993, 8,600 children fathered by USA sailors formerly based in the Philippines were the subject of a maintenance order filed in the USA. The USA Navy was asked to set up a $69 million trust fund for the children born to bar hostesses and prostitutes. It has been argued that the Navy effectively contracted with prostitutes to provide "rest and recreation" for the sailors.
Claim
One of the tragic consequences of the epidemic of illicit sex in the West has been the legacy of illegitimate children abandoned by American soldiers in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Thailand and Viet-Nam. It is no exaggeration to claim that American soldiers fighting in Korea and Viet-Nam have fathered sufficient numbers of illegitimate children to equal the population of several good sized towns.
Broader
Aggravates
Aggravated by
Strategy(ies)
Value(s)
Type
(D) Detailed problems