Table 4 Iconographic and interview analysis

Photograph

Back of the photograph: “When I was painting this picture, I was thinking of my daughter”

Description (manifest content)

The image is of a rectangular work of art, hanging on a light green wall. It is evident that it has been hand-painted with a paintbrush. There are two equally-sized flowers which occupy more than half of the work, one above the other, both colored with blends of blue and white, and with thin branches of the stems crossing each other, and with irregularly-shaped sky blue horizontally-oriented strokes. The background is grey with sky blue and yellow dots

Discourse (interview)

“They’re my two kids. Yes, C and V yes, that’s right, I see them as transparent and I can’t have them, I don’t know what to do! And that’s what it is, a pain I bear with me.”

“As a mother, a mother in pain, I am in pain because I cannot have them, nor my grandchildren, nor kiss them, nor play with them, nor tell my children [anything]; things like that are hard and I think I will go to the grave without being with my children… but I can’t… if that happens to me I’d be defeated.”

“The girl has disengaged from me, and the boy just the same! […] … This is very hard! I mean, she has a different mindset in another culture; of course, it’s been many years now… I haven’t enjoyed anything [of them] nor have I enjoyed [motherhood]. They are the children that have been ripped out! They were ripped out of me by the people who brought me here… […]”

“My children weren’t the fruit of love, they were fruit of rape […]”

Analysis (Latent content)

Code: “Unfulfilled motherhood”. It refers to the frustration of not having played the mother’s role from the participant’s perspective (providing protection, building emotional ties). This failure to provide maternal care is interpreted by her as a vital failure that generates intense suffering

Code: “Ripped-out children”. It refers to the violent separation from children. This separation is a consequence of homelessness and is characterized by an abrupt and forcible separation. The term “ripped out” suggests the notion that children are part of the participant’s identity as a mother. Separation is conceived not only as a physical separation, but also as a separation that leads to an acculturation of her children into their new hosting environment (cultural separation in relation to values, beliefs, ideas, customs, etc.)