Women's Aid and Allstate launch toolkit to help women victims of financial and economic abuse

Women's Aid Northern Ireland in partnership with Allstate, have launched a new toolkit to help victims of financial and economic abuse.

The toolkit was launched on Tuesday 12 March at an event at Allstate in Belfast city centre.

The aim of the toolkit is to raise awareness of financial abuse and provide information that may be helpful to those with first-hand experience, including those who are currently in an abusive relationship, those who are in the process of leaving and those who have already left.

As Women's Aid states, financial abuse is a common tactic used by abusers to exert power and control over their partner and it can begin subtle and progress overtime.

Financial abuse can take the form of controlling how a partner spends their money, how much money they receive, stealing a partner's identity through removing their bank accounts, and access to their own credit cards, forcing or not allowing a partner to work and withholding basic living resources, such as medicine, food, clothing or hygiene products.

Among those who experience other forms of domestic abuse 95% of them will also experience economic abuse. Likewise, one in five women in the UK have experienced financial abuse in a current or former relationship.

Women's Aid Northern Ireland CEO Sarah Mason, who was at the launched said: "Many women we work with do not have their own bank accounts, or even their own ID to open a bank account.

"So they have no financial independence, and that lack of independence is another form of control from an abuser to keep them linked in to a relationship."

"Money is one of the biggest factors that stop women moving on, cost of living has had a major impact on women and domestic abuse relationships, so it is a major element of them being able to move forward and break free."

lf anyone is wishing to use the toolkit Sarah says it will currently only be available to those who go through Women's Aid directly: "This is designed to be delivered within Women's Aid services."

"You need the tools and skills to be able to support that woman through the process, It is not the sort of thing you just hand out to anyone to sit down with a woman."

Sarah says an increase in the number of women victims of financial and economic abuse is one of the reasons behind launching the toolkit: "Unfortunately our numbers are increasing, they're increasing by about 30%.

"Last year there were over 8000 women going through our floating support and refuge provision."

Rosie Lyon, is a survivor of financial abuse and she told her story to those in attendance at the event: "I was in a long term relationship and I left that relationship, I didn't realise that domestic abuse was taking place, didn't even know what domestic abuse was, let alone financial and economic abuse.

"I had a joint mortgage property with that individual and he refused to pay, sell or leave so I had no choice but to let my property go and that has an impact and it financially impacted me in regards to my credit score being completely damaged and there was debt at the end of that."

Rosie says it can be hard to appreciate how difficult financial abuse can be: "We all need to be able to have a phone contract, to have a car, to have a bank account and somewhere to live and when you have a poor credit score it does really damage that and you really are stuck and there is not much you can do."

"When I was going through all of that I was extremely anxious, I was struggling to leave my front door, because I never knew what was going to happen.

"It was jut soul-destroying, one step forward, two steps back, I never thought I was going to get out of it and I thought is this going to be the life I am going to live for the rest of my life."

Rosie was keen to point out that no matter how bad it is, things can and do get better: "My message I always give to people is that there is light at the end of the tunnel, that tunnel is extremely long, don't get me wrong, and it does take a while but there is light and you will get there in the end and life is extremely brilliant and it is worth living after."

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