Economic insecurity can be a weapon in abusive relationships and for some, a lifelong consequence.
During a panel discussion on economic insecurity – hosted at this year’s Women in Super conference and opened by former Prime Minister Julia Gillard – there was one resounding message.
Financial institutions have an important role to play here.
More than 2 million women in Australia have experienced violence from an intimate partner since the age of 15.
Family, domestic and sexual violence permeate all socioeconomic and cultural pockets of society.
The Centre for Women’s Economic Safety Founding CEO Rebecca Glenn said there are many ways economic abuse can happen.
Control can be exerted by restricting access to money or transport, sabotaging a person’s ability to perform well at work by keeping them up at night, creating debt in the partner’s name or coercing her into taking out super.
Glenn said a majority of women facing high financial stress have had a history of economic abuse.
“It’s a form of abuse that compounds and endures.”
The complex nature of family violence and its links to economic insecurity
Dr Tessa Boyd-Caine, who heads Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS), said while abuse can happen to anyone regardless of their socioeconomic status, it can lead to a lifetime of financial insecurity.
This creates a complex dynamic for people in violent homes and leaves some more vulnerable to abuse.
ANROWS released a study in 2022 into economic insecurity and intimate partner violence during the COVID-19 pandemic, which found that economic hardship causes violence in some relationships and in others, it’s a consequence of financial abuse.
Dr Boyd-Caine said people in violent relationships may fear things will get worse if they leave, or that they may go hungry or have to tell their kids they can’t afford what they need.
“There’s a whole series of fears,” she said.
Because of this, panellists noted that banks and financial institutions are often the first place victim-survivors report violence even before going to police or welfare services.
When these institutions lack safety plans and processes to support clients when they disclose, many people can fall through the cracks.
As a product or service provider, Dr Boyd-Caine said, it’s important to recognise the complexity of this issue and to question the “stigma and assumptions we make about surviving these patterns of abuse”.
“Women want the violence to end, not necessarily the relationship,” she said.
“Addressing economic insecurity is absolutely critical because it’s both a driver of and an impact from domestic violence.
“It’s going to take work from all of us to end this.”
How banks and insurance providers can help
Dr Boyd-Caine said financial institutions should collaborate or partner with evidence-based domestic violence groups who can help inform best-practice and fill in knowledge gaps around how to appropriately respond when a client discloses an abusive relationship.
Council of Australian Life Insurers (CALI) CEO Christine Cupitt agreed, saying this approach can give places like banks or insurance companies critical tools to properly support someone and even ensure protection when there is imminent risk.
She said when large firms collaborate with social services to combat issues like this it can lead to innovative solutions that change society.
“If you want to step that up as an organisation, build that capability with your staff,” she said.
Unlocking access to emergency funds
Cuppitt said banks can do a better job at making emergency funds more easily accessible in cases of family and domestic violence.
She said this may prevent those who are already financially vulnerable from withdrawing superannuation because that’s their only option.
“When people are trying to reestablish their financial safety nets and future, banks can do a bit more to release small amounts for those in hardship,” she said.
Cupitt said the effects of financial abuse are often hidden and severely limit a person.
To help, she said CALI has created a working group with a “healthy representation of men” to identify where current systems or policies may be adding to the problem or increasing risks for victim-survivors.
The group has identified how joint accounts and policies can be used to perpetrate abuse after some members reported how women in abusive relationships attended their head offices pleading for insurance to be cancelled.
She said they also realised a need for much tighter confidentiality and privacy controls to prevent abusers from accessing sensitive information like the physical address of a partner they share a policy with.
They are also changing how services are provided day-to-day so a client who may be experiencing such violence isn’t asked to contact their abuser or charged for obtaining hard copies of documents.
“We [also] looked at what we could do with our staff,” Cupitt said.
This has meant looking at training in identifying and responding to domestic violence and also supporting employees who may be exposed to vicarious trauma as a result.
Cupitt said any organisation wanting to step up and better support clients experiencing family violence should make this a part of their core purpose.
At CALI, she said the board’s goal is to provide people with protection, so providing a service that then undermines this needs to be fixed.
“There are lots of things institutions can do to better protect survivors.”
A way forward
The panel discussion wrapped up with a powerful moment.
Service product designer and business analyst Usha Sista, who was sitting in the audience, stood up to thank the speakers for their insights.
She also bravely shared her own experience with domestic violence.
“The last hour is almost a near accurate resume of the last 20 years of my life,” she said.
“I don’t want others to go through what I did.”
She later told Women’s Agenda that she is hoping to build a symbiotic violence-prevention hub that draws together a wide range of service providers from therapists and case workers through to banks, superannuation funds and financial planners.
“I don’t even want to portray those women who are enduring this as victims,” she said.
“Think of it as a hero’s journey.
“[Banks] need an emergency fund service and that has to be designed keeping these particular stories, voices and customers in mind. You cannot design this service like you would for any other product, it’s not a credit card. It’s a very specific kind of hardship within which you have all these other issues.
“But you also need extreme policy and regulatory oversight over these things. Any systemic change is very hard … It’s not going to happen overnight.
“It’s not a one-person job.”
Feature image credit: Kit Edwards.