Zainaba Shukor
KOTA KINABALU: The number of single mothers and children growing up without the stability of family life is on the rise in Sabah.
Karambunai Single Mother’s Association president Zainaba Shukor said although she did not have their exact numbers, it was a worrying trend and required the attention of the relevant authorities.
“People are marrying too young and divorcing early too. Some of the single mothers I have met married in their teens and were divorced or were abandoned by their husbands when they were in their early 20s … getting in and out of marriage is so easy,” she said after receiving a donation of RM2,500 from KFC (Sabah) Sdn Bhd at the KFC Berjaya branch near here yesterday.
She added that the majority of the single mothers she was in contact with were simply abandoned along with their children.
“This results in the women becoming the caretaker as well as the breadwinner of their families … a lot of the men were irresponsible and do not want to pay for their children’s maintenance,” she said.
She cited that this was not easy for the women who often had to leave their children to the care of others or to fend for themselves while their mothers went to work.
“Children get acquainted with unhealthy characters and unhealthy activities much more easily this way, particularly if they reside in urban areas,” she said.
“Our finding is this – when a mother is neglected, the probability of her children being neglected increases as well. The children do not get proper guidance with regard to their moral behaviour, they don’t go to school and sometimes, they also experiment with drugs and get trapped in the menace of drugs. So the danger of them becoming social ills to the society is there and we need to address this,” she stressed.
The districts with the highest incidence of women being abandoned by their husband are Kota Marudu, Nabawan, Tenom and Pitas.
Zainaba also mentioned that these single mothers were often taken advantage of by various members of the community.
“Since they married young, they have poor reading and writing skills. Hence, they can only opt for jobs with low pay. I tried helping one single mother by providing her with opportunities to make extra income after she finishes up her day work but she was sacked when her employer found out about it. Single mothers are very vulnerable,” she said.
The young single mothers also face another danger – foreign men are taking advantage of them to apply for work pass, to apply for business license and so on.
“These foreigners set up sundry shops. You can find them at every nook and cranny of every district in Sabah. They get acquainted with local women, promise to look after these women, marry them. Some of the women we came across have been dumped by these men and there have been cases of women being physically abused by them.”
She urged the government to come up with ways to address this looming problem affecting single mothers.
She reminded that these foreign men not only used the local women to acquire documentations they needed to legalise their stay here but also siphoned off money to their home country, hence being a burden to the State and country.
“The women need financial assistance. They need to be given access to education.”
At the same time, she also urged the local communities to do something to help the single mothers and their children from being taken advantage of.
“We, as Sabahans, need to do something. We can’t close our eyes to what is going on.”