“I trusted him to manage all our money, now I’m left with all his debts.”
“When we got married, I had a job, a car and I was saving up to buy a house. The marriage is over and I’ve got nothing.”
“We were both on good salaries, but we never seemed to have enough money. I kept wondering where all the money was going.”
These statements will be very familiar to many women. Each one is indicative of financial abuse in an intimate relationship yet despite financial abuse being included in family violence laws in Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory for a number of years, there is very little public awareness about this issue.
Importantly, many women who experience financial abuse do not recognise it is as form of family violence and most only identify it after they have left the relationship.
Financial abuse occurs when money and assets are used by a person to exercise power and control over their partner. It can take different forms: it may be a situation where the man insists on controlling all the household finances and monitors all his partner’s spending, making her show him all the receipts.
It is financial abuse when a woman is prevented by her partner from working or studying – or doing things which would create financial independence. It can be when a woman is restricted or prevented from using the family car; or it may be that the partner keeps all their financial affairs a secret. He might not allow a woman to spend money on herself or their children while spending recklessly on himself or take out loans and run up debts in his partner’s name, refuses to contribute to household expenses or child care or puts the woman’s name on all the utility bills.
The extent of financial abuse in intimate relationships is difficult to measure because women don’t identify with the terminology but also because powerful social beliefs help to keep this issue hidden. Persistent gender stereotypes that men are better money managers and women are spendthrifts and financially incompetent combine with the notion that financial matters should be kept private work to keep financial abuse out of the public eye. It is conservatively estimated that financial abuse occurs in at least 50 per cent of family violence cases. This means that on the basis that one in three Australian women experience family violence in their lifetime, around 2 million women are subjected to this form of abuse.
It is known that financial abuse results in immediate and often long term financial insecurity for the women who experience it.
For many, it leads to poverty and homelessness. It touches the lives of women from all walks of life and across the age, social and cultural spectrum. As well as having lost control over their finances during their relationship, these women have been told repeatedly that they are ‘hopeless with money’, that they are ‘stupid’, that they couldn’t understand or be capable of managing financial matters. This means that when their relationship ends, not only are they left with little or nothing but debts, a profound lack of self-confidence and real difficulty finding a job because they may have been out of the workforce for years. Small wonder it is so hard for them to get back on their feet financially. For many this impacts on their financial security for the rest of their lives.
WIRE Women’s Information, a not for profit women’s service in Melbourne, is currently conducting research with women who have experienced financial abuse to find out more about this complex issue. Through a series of focus groups in Melbourne and regional Victoria women are sharing their stories to increase understanding of the impact of this form of abuse and identify information gaps and barriers in the system. There is also a confidential and anonymous online survey for women who have experienced financial abuse to be completed by 31 March 2014.
Preliminary research findings show that these women are often particularly disadvantaged in property settlement and legal processes. If their ex-partner has the resources to pay for legal costs, they can be dragged through the courts for years, which further impoverishes them. Others choose to avoid pursuing a fair financial settlement because they are afraid of their ex-partner or they may just want the whole episode to be over. Unsurprisingly many women forgo their chance for a fair financial settlement from their relationship – ending up with no home or furniture, little money in the bank, their ex-partner’s debts, the psychological trauma of an abusive relationship to deal with as well as responsibility for the children. Many women report that the payment of child support is another means financially abusive partners can ‘play the system’ to perpetuate the abuse post-separation.
The WIRE research will be published in a report to be released publicly in July 2014. For more information about the research, visit the website, or call Prue Cameron on 03 9348 9416 (Option 9) or email: [email protected]