Spotlight on economic abuse - Good Shepherd Youth & Family ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Case Study: Maria Maria’s husband used manipulative behaviour to try to ensure Maria remained reliant on him for financial security. Initially he discouraged her from joining the workforce, saying she should concentrate on minding their three children. After the children started school Maria wanted to study nursing. Outwardly her husband gave his approval but he made it difficult, if not impossible, for Maria to study effectively. Maria’s husband promised to look after the kids but double-booked so Maria had to miss classes or study. He hid her study documents, professing ignorance if she asked him about them. He accused her of being selfish if she made study a priority over his or the children’s needs. He took steps to make her exhausted when she sat exams or had other important study days, coming home late and waking her, or provoking arguments or stressful encounters close to bedtime. Maria passed her course and began working. Her husband appeared to support her but as time went by increasingly he sabotaged her efforts to be a reliable, consistent employee. He promised her use of the car then took it himself. He offered to drive her to the station then pretended to forget. He insisted she stay home if the children were sick and he never took time off to care for them. He sometimes turned up at her workplace unexpectedly, even though she asked him not to. After Maria left her husband his visits to work continued and were openly nasty. He often called and shouted at her over the phone and he threatened her workmates. Case study from Good Shepherd Youth & Family Service family violence program. The list below has been drawn from the findings of this body of research, from reviews of literature (Fawole 2008; Gilfus 2002; Landvogt 2011; National Coalition against Domestic Violence [NCADV] n.d.; Renzetti 2009; Swanberg, Macke & Logan 2005; Tolman 2011) and from practitioner accounts of abuse (Fraser, Hunter & Borrell 2011; Green & Pearce 2002; Hand, Chung & Peters 2009). A.1 Preventing acquisition of economic resources through interfering with education, training and employment sabotaging transport (for example, hiding keys or taking car, refusing to give a ride to work) failing to provide promised childcare hiding work clothes destroying documents (for example, books for study, essays) physically restraining women inflicting injuries cutting a woman’s hair preventing sleep stealing/withholding medication harassing with phone calls to work during the day harassing co-workers threatening or demanding woman quits job/study following woman to and from work. 6
A.2 Preventing acquisition of economic resources through other interference taking pay interfering with receipt of other income (for example, child support, income support) refusing to include a woman’s name on property titles or car ownership papers not allowing car ownership preventing a woman having access to her own bank account/joint bank account preventing access to financial information preventing involvement in important financial decisions. B. Preventing use of resources/controlling access to economic resources controlling a woman’s ability to make use of her own or shared resources controlling how money is spent and limiting access (for example, denying access to money for necessities such as food or allocating a specific amount of money and no more to be spent on household necessities) limiting access to and monitoring use of transportation controlling a woman’s credit card, bank account access monitoring all spending and making a woman account for all money spent. C. Refusing to contribute refusing to contribute to household expenses (including making woman solely responsible for household debts such as utility bills) refusing to earn income or claim incomes support or other benefits; D. Exploiting a woman’s resources and generating economic costs depleting a woman’s resources including stealing money and causing debts to be generated in her name stealing, destroying or damaging household goods, a woman’s belongings, houses, cars pawning a woman’s property or shared property running up debts in a woman’s name (for example, fines associated with cars, business losses), possibly leading to bankruptcy obtaining credit in a woman’s name or in both names, using up the credit and running up debts spending money required for household needs (for example, rent, food, bills). forcing a woman to commit social security or tax fraud. The Power and Control Wheel shown below was developed on the basis of women’s experiences of domestic violence to document the most common forms of abusive behaviours or tactics used by men against women. It includes economic abuse as one aspect of a pattern of actions used to intentionally control or dominate a partner. This wheel is widely used in Australia and elsewhere as a tool for assisting workers and women who have experienced violence to identify and understand controlling and abusive behaviours(Christy-McMullin 2011; Domestic Violence Resource Centre Victoria 2012, viewed 19 August 2012, http://www.dvrcv.org.au/ellen-pence/>; Sharp 2008). 7
Page 2 and 3: Spotlight on Econo
Page 4 and 5: Contents List of Abbreviations ....
Page 6 and 7: Executive Summary This literature r
Page 8 and 9: legal matters migration matters hea
Page 10 and 11: There is a need for greater support
Page 12 and 13: Overview This paper is organised as
Page 14 and 15: The DV Vic definition informs the u
Page 18 and 19: Some ‘typical scenarios’ of eco
Page 20 and 21: As part of repeated or ongoing cont
Page 22 and 23: also outside the scope of this pape
Page 24 and 25: Influences, Impacts and Points of I
Page 26 and 27: Particular vulnerabilities to econo
Page 28 and 29: Exploring the impacts of economic a
Page 30 and 31: Impacts relating to child support.
Page 32 and 33: Compared with 1995, people were mor
Page 34 and 35: Public Policies and Practices There
Page 36 and 37: the legal frameworks affecting dome
Page 38 and 39: In addition to family violence poli
Page 40 and 41: Centrelink may seek to recover paym
Page 42 and 43: Services staff providing customer s
Page 44 and 45: perpetrators to be excluded from th
Page 46 and 47: purpose is to “build the capacity
Page 48 and 49: financial literacy strategy. Howeve
Page 50 and 51: or in any other way controls or dom
Page 52 and 53: In its recent review the ALRC ident
Page 54 and 55: and for the creation of a new tempo
Page 56 and 57: equiring assistance or consideratio
Page 58 and 59: establish if there is a need for re
Page 60 and 61: considered by community sector grou
Page 62 and 63: Community Services Policies and Pra
Page 64 and 65: Financial counselling services are
Page 66 and 67:
Conclusion: Community services resp
Page 68 and 69:
—— 2011, Forms of employment, A
Page 70 and 71:
Chappell, D & Di Martino, V 2000, V
Page 72 and 73:
se.unsw.edu.au/Conference%20papers/
Page 74 and 75:
Northern Territory Government 2008,
Page 76 and 77:
VicHealth—see Victorian Health Pr
Page 78 and 79:
ALRC (2011c) recommendations for ch
Page 80:
GoodShepherd_Cover_print.indd 2 1/1
show all

Spotlight on economic abuse - Good Shepherd Youth & Family ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?