Economic abuse

• Women in abusive relationships are more likely to be unemployed and earn less money than women with non-abusive partners.
• That’s among the key findings confirmed by a landmark international study by researchers from England, America and Finland, which charted the economic impact abusive relationships have on women.

What is economic abuse in a domestic relationship?

We know from previous research that men use economic abuse to exert power over and exploit their female partners. It can involve using intimidation, threats, humiliation, emotional manipulation, isolation and physical violence to restrict their partner’s right to work and access to property, including
• This abuse sabotages a woman’s independence and ability to leave the relationship by limiting her access to money and work outside the home.
• Economic abuse is more common than many realise.

What did the new study set out to do?

• The study’s authors linked information from unusually comprehensive police and economic databases in Finland to chart men’s economic abuse of their female partners.
• The researchers compared women who had reported domestic abuse to police with a matched sample of women who had not reported abuse.

What did the new study find?

• In other words, the negative outcomes were a product of the abuse rather than any characteristics of the victim-survivors.
• The researchers were also able to identify that a negative impact on economic wellbeing occurred relatively early in abusive relationships.
• The study also found that economic abuse usually preceded physical violence, but could also occur in relationships where there was no reported violence.

How to end this abuse?

• Many consent and behaviour change programs include economic abuse as a recognised form of coercion and control.
• It’s also important we find ways to improve financial literacy and provide more support for women seeking to leave abusive relationships.
• Australian banks have already developed useful guidelines and are working with experts in domestic and family violence to promote understanding of this abuse.
• It’s vital that we find ways to support women to deal with the predictable consequences of economic abuse.

• Tasked with raising the centre’s profile amid rumours of funding cuts, Phoebe is quickly confronted with her own assumptions of the policies and services used to protect victim-survivors.
• While shadowing prickly lawyer Jenny (Mabel Li) at the magistrate’s court on her first day, Phoebe reads through a list of intervention orders.
• Safe Home, a new television series from SBS, is compelling, at times devastating, but always powerful in its commitment to articulating difficult truths around domestic and family violence with nuance, integrity and care.

Domestic and family violence in Australia

• Safe Home offers an important critique of the assumptions and expectations that influence public understanding of domestic and family violence.
• While the Australian government has recently launched a National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children, experts have emphasised the significant, long term funding needed to meet its goal to end violence against women “in one generation”.
• Read more:
  A new national plan aims to end violence against women and children 'in one generation'.

Telling stories of crisis

• Safe Home was inspired by creator Anna Barnes’ experience working at community legal centres in Melbourne.
• Diana (Janet Andrewartha) struggles to leave her controlling husband Jon (Mark Mitchinson), a retired teacher well-regarded in their small town.
• Read more:
  New data shows 1 in 3 women have experienced physical violence and sexual violence remains stubbornly persistent

The personal becomes political

• We encounter the spectre of strategies used against victim-survivors: physical abuse, economic abuse, verbal threats and put-downs, control and coercion, love bombing and revenge porn.
• We are confronted with perpetrators who evade common stereotypes to appear, on the surface, likeable, friendly, charming and sympathetic.
• The situations faced by victim-survivors intersect with – and are exacerbated by – current crises surrounding housing, homelessness and the cost of living.
• In Safe Home, the personal becomes political.

• The recognition seeks to elevate women changing their respective industries by influencing the world in real and concrete ways.
• Buck and Oppenheim were honored for their commitment to supporting women working towards financial security through their Hire One, Help One program.
• For every candidate hired through its firm, nextOPP donates career coaching services to a survivor of domestic violence.
• The Hire One, Help One program was developed in 2018, redefining nextOPP Search as a for-profit/for-purpose company.

• Cases of domestic abuse in Canada almost doubled during the pandemic, with 93% of victims also experiencing economic abuse.
• Those who experience economic abuse are five times more likely to experience physical abuse and other forms of gender-based violence including sexual and psychological abuse.
• Moreover, when women experience economic abuse in the context of coercive control, they are at increased risk of homicide (Surviving Economic Abuse 2019).
• CCFWE is the only Canadian not-for-profit organization dedicated to ending economic abuse through education, policy change, mentorship and economic empowerment.