WHAT IS FINANCIAL ABUSE ?

 

“He would belittle my professional achievements and act as timekeeper to demand I did not work late to further my career. He would speak and act as if my time were his possession that I was stealing by going the extra mile at work.”

“I worked for his business full-time seven days a week, but I wasn’t paid. I was given £30 a week to run the house. He said I was doing it for the family.”

“The income was in his name; the outgoings were in my name”.

“We’d go shopping together but I wouldn’t dare put anything into the trolley. I’d tell the children they couldn’t put anything in either as we had no money.”

“It’s the basis of all control. They make you dependent on them. They cut off your routes of what you can do. Finance is the basics. I was given such a little amount then expected to buy things and do things.”

Sounds relatable? 

Financial abuse is one aspect of domestic violence, as a type of abuse occurring within the context of coercive and controlling behavior. Coercive control, includes control over all aspects of life, including emotional, psychological and financial. Coercive control can be regarded as a pattern of behavior which seeks to take away the victim’s liberty or freedom, to strip away their sense of self.

As a form of control, financial abuse involves using or misusing money to limit and control the partner’s current and future actions and freedom of choice. It can include using credit cards without permission, putting contractual obligations in the partner’s name, and gambling with family assets. It often results in debt and other financial problems, sometimes leaving the survivor and children without enough food. Even when a survivor has left the home, financial control can still be exerted by the abuser regarding child maintenance, interference in employment and/or damage to property. 

Financial abuse also affects the ability to flee from violence, as lack of money can delay or prevent victims leaving their abusers. Financial abuse is not always recognized as a distinct aspect of domestic violence; it is sometimes regarded as part of emotional or psychological abuse (thus masking its extent). US research suggests that virtually all abused women experience financial abuse at some point and financial abuse is a distinct yet common form of abuse.

Here are four common forms of financial abuse—

1. The Abuser “Takes Care” of the Finances

Some couples choose to have a relationship “CFO” to manage their finances, especially if one partner has a predilection for balancing the books or tracking spending. That’s normal. What isn’t normal is when a partner takes control of the finances and doesn’t give the other partner access to accounts and funds. This strips away the victim’s economic self-sufficiency from the victim, such as having money to meet basic needs. It can be done through the guise of “taking care” of the finances but leaves the victim in the dark about how the money is being managed. After an abuser takes control of the finances, they may give the victim an “allowance” but reduce it over time. This can eventually prevent the victim from obtaining necessary items such as food and medicine.

2. Employment Sabotage

In an effort to prevent the victim from having access to money, the abuser may forbid the victim to work—or sabotage their current employment. That can include harassing the victim at their workplace or physically abusing them before important meetings so they show up unprepared and distracted—if they’re able to make it to work at all. A 2003 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that women in the U.S. lose nearly 8 million days of paid work each year because of violence they suffer from current or former partners. Through employment sabotage, the victim is often pushed to the point where they feel like they have no choice but to quit their job. Being unemployed leaves a victim in a vulnerable financial position where they become completely dependent upon their abuser. An abuser can also prevent a victim from looking for jobs or attending interviews.

3. Economic Exploitation

Economic exploitation is one of the most severe aspects of financial abuse. In this case, an abuser will intentionally destroy the victim’s financial resources or credit history. They’ll open a line of credit under the victim’s name without their consent, refuse to pay bills in the victim’s name or gamble away jointly earned money. Oftentimes, the victim has no access to their financial accounts, so they have no idea this activity is happening. This behavior can take the victim’s credit, which means they’ll have a hard time getting approved for financial products, like a credit card, auto loan or mortgage, in the future. For years, [the victim] can be haunted with bankruptcies, tax liens and bad debt that follows them around. 

4. Coerced Debt

Another form of economic exploitation is coerced debt, which refers to an abuser forcing a victim to take out a line of credit or make transactions in the victim’s name. Sometimes, the abuser will threaten to harm the victim or their children if they don’t comply. Coerced debt is one of the most complicated types of financial abuse to reconcile and recover from, since it’s hard to prove that the victim didn’t consent to making the transactions—especially if they were made online. There’s been an uptick in coerced debt since the Covid-19 pandemic began. The financial difficulties many families continue to face in the aftermath of the pandemic is making abusers “desperate” and they turn to debt coercion as a way to stay financially afloat.

REFERENCES- 

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/personal-finance/signs-of-financial-abuse-domestic-violence-awareness/

https://www.womensaid.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Women_s_Aid_TUC_Financial_Abuse_Report_March_2015.pdf

~ By Tanvi Meena