Domestic Violence - Financial and Economic Abuse

Willing2Learn

I am just posting this to help people to identify this type of abuse when advising members of their options.

What is financial abuse?
Financial abuse is an aspect of ‘coercive control’ – a pattern of controlling, threatening and degrading behaviour that restricts a victims’ freedom.

It’s important to understand that financial abuse seldom happens in isolation: in most cases perpetrators use other abusive behaviours to threaten and reinforce the financial abuse.

Financial abuse involves a perpetrator using or misusing money which limits and controls their partner’s current and future actions and their freedom of choice. It can include using credit cards without permission, putting contractual obligations in their partner’s name, and gambling with family assets.

Financial abuse can leave women with no money for basic essentials such as food and clothing. It can leave them without access to their own bank accounts, with no access to any independent income and with debts that have been built up by abusive partners set against their names. Even when a survivor has left the home, financial control can still be exerted by the abuser with regard to child maintenance.

Sadly the vast majority of survivors experience financial abuse at some point.


What is economic abuse?
Economic abuse is wider in its definition than ‘financial abuse’, as it can also include restricting access to essential resources such as food, clothing or transport, and denying the means to improve a person’s economic status (for example, through employment, education or training). The charity Surviving Economic Abuse describes it in the following way:
“Economic abuse is designed to reinforce or create economic instability. In this way it limits women’s choices and ability to access safety. Lack of access to economic resources can result in women staying with abusive men for longer and experiencing more harm as a result.”


Source: https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/what-is-domestic-abuse/financial-abuse/

sourcrates

Not always woman either, men can also be affected by this.

Willing2Learn

sourcrates wrote: »

Not always woman either, men can also be affected by this.

Help for Men Who Are Being Abused

Willing2Learn

I hadn't realised that Martin (Lewis) wrote about this last year in his blog.  Here is the link:
https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2019/06/martin-lewis--financial-abuse--joint-accounts-and-managing-money/ 

And then someone wrote to Martin about their experience of financial abuse and control.  Here is the link to that:
https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2020/02/martin-lewis---martin--i-m-so-glad-i-read-your-financial-abuse-g/