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Financial abuse
results when the abuser is controlling money and/or bank accounts;
withholding economic resources such as money or credit cards;
withholding financial information; stealing from or defrauding a
partner of money or assets; exploiting the intimate partner's
resources for personal gain; withholding physical resources such as
food, clothes, necessary medications, or shelter from a partner;
preventing the spouse or intimate partner from working or choosing
an occupation; controlling the money or controlling how partner is
allowed to spend money; concealing joint assets or shared money;
keeping their partner impoverished; controlling finances, taking
victim's money, giving victim an allowance or making victim ask
for money; insisting that victim account for all her expenditures
and/or have no knowledge of the family finances; blowing money or
running up debts; taking or disabling the vehicle; destroying
property; withholding child support; or sabotaging work or school or
the victim's ability to make a living or provide for
oneself.
There is no
limit to the creativity and wide range of actions and control
that an abuser will attempt to utilize for financial and/or economic
abuse. An abuser may prevent a partner from
having physical resources such as food, clothes, necessary
medications, or shelter from a partner, thus keeping their partner
impoverished. He may purposely
sabotage his wife's employment by continuously calling or harrassing
her at work, causing her to be repeatedly repreimanded or to
ultimately lose her job, or even by taking the car or the keys, or
even disabling the car, so that she cannot go to work or
school. An abuser
may insist upon controlling all finances, taking victim's money,
giving victim an "allowance" or making victim ask - or even beg
- for money. The abuser may insist that the victim account for
all her expenditures, and he must "approve" of them; if he
disapproves, he may insist that the item(s) be returned, or he might
use what he sees as such "frivolous" purchases against her in the
future, reducing money he "allows" her as a result of her using
money in what he insists are frivolous ways or on things
he has decided that she does not "need".
Abuse is usually a matter of control - the abuser
seeks to control the victim in any way possible. As such,
victims of other types of abuse, such
as physical and/or emotional abuse, are often also
experiencing financial or economic abuse as well. Although
criminal offenses can apply to situations of financial abuse (such
as theft, fraud, or forgery), these offenses are often hard to prove
in a family situation where the pattern appears to have been one of
joint finances. In addition, although the behavior might very
obviously be financial abuse (such as not allowing the victim
to have access to family money, or making the victim beg to "be
allowed" to have certain necessary items or money to purchase
them), these actions may be very difficult to define as a
crime.
Financial/Economic Abuse is a very effective way for
the abuser to exert considerable control over the victim and to
prevent the victim from developing any autonomy or freedom from the
abuser and can easily be used as a way of preventing the
victin from leaving the home or marriage - if a victim has no
money of "her own", no access to any money, and no ability to earn
money, the victim is much less likely to try to escape the abusive
situation.
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