ISSN: 2222-6990
Open access
Regardless of the age of the unwed mother, pregnancy out of wedlock is considered as sinful, violation of the norm and disgrace to the family in most of Asian countries including Malaysia. Although the Malaysian society and authority are concerned on this matter, however, people rarely talk about this topic in public due to shame and stigma. Owing to that, little is known about the perspectives of this marginalized group about their life experiences. The shared data were used to explore the life experiences of an unwed mother in three different life times. The data were then analyzed by using the House-Tree-Person (HTP) analysis. The study found that the unwed mother felt the life in the shelter home as unwelcome, lost of dignity and self esteem. Consequently, it impacted on her later life that she felt more lonely and unable to regain back her dignity and self-esteem that she longing for. The data can be benefited to the Malaysian authority as well as the society to be more sympathecically and acknowledge the experiences of unwed mother. Hence, it will increase the awareness and understanding towards unwed mothers as well as to reduce the stigma on them.
Buck, J. (1981). The House-Tree-Person technique. Los Angeles, CA: Western Psychological Services.
Chong, S. T., Kusenin, N. S., Saim, N. J., Ibrahim, F., Lian, D. K. C., Nen, S., Hoesni, M. S., & Mokhtar, D. (2020). Social Capital and Youth Development. International Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation, 24(4), 4181-4192.
Haxhiymeri, E. (2015). Factors associated with child maltreatment (Case of Tirana Shelter for victims of domestic violence. British Journal of Educational Study, Volume 9, No 1. Pp. 39-59.
Jaladin, R. A. M., Fernandez, J. A., Abdullah, N. A. S., & Asmawi, A. (2020). Empowering single mothers through creative group counselling: An effective intervention to improve mental wellbeing. Malaysian Journal of Medicine and Health Sciences, 16(3), 192-201.
Khadijah, A., Mohd, N. S., & Daniella, M. (2020). Social capital and youth development. International Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation 24: 4181-4192.
Mannay, D. (2013). ‘Who put that on there... why why why?:’ Power games and participatory techniques of visual data production. Visual Studies, 28 (2), pp.136-146, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1472586X.2013.801635
Mohd, M. S., Kamal, M. K. A. M., Yusof, M. S. M., & Yusof, N. A. (2021). Single Mothers in Malaysia: Survivability, Entrepreneurship and Empowerment. Journal of Advance Social Sciences and Policy, 1(1), 43-54.
Oster, G. D., & Gould, P. (1987). Using Drawings in Assessment and Therapy: A guide for Mental Health Professionals, Brunner, New York.
Saim, N. J. (2013). Social Support, coping, resilience and mental health in Malaysian unwed young pregnant women and young mothers: Their experiences while living in a shelter home. PhD thesis. Department of Social Work. Umea University, Sweden.
Saim, N. J., Dufaker, M., Eriksson, M., Ghazinour, M. (2013). Listen to the Voices of Unwed Teenage Mothers in Malaysian Shelter Homes: An Explorative Study. Global Journal of Health Science. Vol. 5, (5), 20.
Saim, N. J., Ghazinour, M., & Richter, J. (2016). Mental health predicted by coping, social support, and resilience among young unwed pregnant Malaysian women and mothers living in shelter homes. International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare 9(3): 185-197.
Saim, N. J., Abbas, A., Abdullah, F., Subhi, N., Mohammad, M. S., Jalaludin, N. H., & Idris, I. B. (2019). Care Management of Pregnancy Out of Wedlock: The Comparison Between the Institutions. Paper presented on International Social Work Symposium 2019. Kuala Lumpur: Institut Sosial Malaysia, pp 305-314.
Saim, N. J., Mohamad, M. S., & Subhi, N. (2020). Approaching the hard-to-reach population: The experience of data collection among unwed mothers in Malaysia, International Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation, Vol. 24, Issue 04, 4371 – 4378.
Saldana, J. (2003). Longitudinal qualitative research: Analyzing change through time. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Sarnon, N., Mohamad, M. S., Ibrahim, F., Alavi, K., Nen, S., & Hoesni, S. (2012). Pregnancy out of wedlock: Understanding adolescent as a basic of family intervention (Hamil luar nikah: Memahami remaja sebagai asas intervensi keluarga). Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 7(1), 121-130.
Temblador, B. (1990) The experience of being a single mother and a student. Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014. 2159. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.umass. edu/theses/215
Valiquetta, T. S., Vandette, M., & Gosselin, J. (2015). In her own eyes: Photovoice as an innovation methodology to reach disadvantaged single mothers. Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health, 34 (1), 1-16.
Woodruff, S. C. (1960). Melville and his chimney. PMLA, 75(3), pp283-292.
In-Text Citation: (Saim et al., 2022)
To Cite this Article: Saim, N. J., Subhi, N., Mohammad, M. S., Jalaludin, N. H., Abbas, A., Idris, A., & Sarnon, N. (2022). Delving into the Story of an Unwed Mother in Malaysia by Longitudinal Photovoice Methodology. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 12(10), 1823 – 1833.
Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s)
Published by HRMARS (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode