In Malay-Muslim society the proper place for the anak dara till she got married was her natal home, She was required to learn the arts of managing the household while waiting for a man to come propose to her. Her morality lay in the hands of her male kin, namely her father, Her father upheld his honor in two: by providing for the economic needs of his family and by ensuring the high moral behavior of his unmarried daughter.

In these days of fishing crisis, the men are unable to fulfill their duties of providing for the family, This has forced the anak dara to go out to work as net3repairers. However, a man’s honor is upheld by his working anak dara daughter to work outside the hose gives her autonomy. Sending her off to work in a veil gives her father a perceived control over her morality

The maxim in village society that anak dara tok leh jale (umarried virgins are not allowed to leave the village unchaperoned) is now being challenged by these young women leaving to work in Pattani. While push-net and trawler boats have destroyed the marine environment and hence the livelihoods of their fathers, big commercial boats have provided these young women with jobs in the form of broken nets for repair, Sino-Thai boat-owners, while looking down on their on their female net-repairers, have actually created agency for these Muslim women to have earning power and by extension re-negotiate apace for many activities that were previously denied them.

The current environmental crisis has created a new arena for unmarried young women to find a new identity for themselves as working anak dara. Their status as unmarried young women means their material needs should be adequately satisfied by their fathers. Because their fathers have become displaced fishermen, they have little choice but to permit their anak dara daughters to go out to work to earn money to pay for their expenses.

The new identity that working  outside of home has created for the unmarried Muslim women allows her to maintain her transformation in to a working girl allows her to use her wages to explore the fashion and beauty would of the Thai-Buddhist. While this world was previously closed to her primarily because she had no access to it, the new earning power of the anak dara has allowed her of indulge in this would, her identity as a working anak dara has given her access to both the Muslim would and the Buddhist world.