Domestic Violence Often Accompanied by Financial Abuse

While victims of domestic violence often suffer terrible physical abuse at the hands of their attackers, that violence is regularly accompanied by controlling or coercive financial abuse intended to break down a domestic violence survivor’s material life, reports USA Today. While the psychological and physical impact of domestic violence keeps survivors in abusive relationships, financial abuse creates cycles of struggle, a constant effort to rebuild credit or get a job after years out of work that can drive someone back to an abuser.

Forms of economic abuse like coerced debt, sabotaging a job and unilateral financial decisions in a marriage are “very difficult to prove and rarely prosecuted,” said Laura Russell, the director of the Domestic Violence Unit at the Legal Aid Society. Changing how courts view economic abuse, she said, begins with recognition in legislation. The 2021 version of the Violence Against Women Act includes the long-awaited definition of economic abuse as “behavior that is coercive, deceptive, or unreasonably controls or restrains a person’s ability to acquire, use, or maintain economic resources to which they are entitled.” Defining economic abuse in legislation won’t necessarily help survivors get out of coerced debt or regain financial stability, said Russell. Still, she hopes it offers a foundation to build on because financial wellbeing is crucial to leaving an abusive relationship and establishing an independent life.