Survivor-led strategies for tackling economic abuse

Image © Bernadette Marciniak, Solhaus Media

When Lindsay Fischer left college, she had a bright future ahead of her. She had a job she loved, a house, and a car. Things were going well. When she met someone who was the man of her dreams, she thought things couldn’t get better.

Their relationship started out well. After a few months, he encouraged her to give up her teaching career and to focus on her second passion, which was writing. He hired her in his own company, so she became both his partner and his employee.

Not long afterwards, Lindsay’s partner began to try to alienate her from her friends and family, and, as her employer, he had financial control over her. He became abusive and eventually, after he threatened to kill her and threw her down the stairs, she left him in fear of her life.

Traumatised by her experiences, Lindsay went back to her own house. There she faced more challenges: the electricity had been cut off, her car was repossessed three days later, and within a week, her house went into foreclosure proceedings. In the space of her 18-month relationship, everything had changed – she had no transport, and was in debt and in danger of becoming homeless, with no source of income. Things looked grim. But Lindsay was a fighter and, desperate to improve her situation, she threw herself back into work.

After six months, she got a full-time job teaching, and slowly she was able to rebuild her life. Eventually she saw a therapist who helped her deal with her trauma. “There is no shame in asking for help,” says Lindsay, “There is life after abuse, it goes on.”

As Lindsay experienced, economic abuse is where partners or ex-partners control survivors’ money and limit their access to resources. They deliberately make survivors economically dependent, which limits their ability to leave or stay safe once they have left.

Oak supports not-for-profit organisations working in the field of economic abuse, so that women who have gone through circumstances similar to those Lindsay experienced can get the help they need. We
feature two of our partners here.

FreeFrom
A US-based organisation that creates routes to financial, long-term safety for survivors of economic abuse, FreeFrom is a survivor-led organisation with a network of more than 30,000 people. It is guided by a belief in community-based support, where survivors can find safety all of the time, rather than just at the most visible ‘crisis’ moments.

According to founder and CEO Sonya Passi, being survivor-led means operating from “a basic ethos that survivors know best what we need.” Not only does this mean that 83 percent of FreeFrom’s staff are survivors, it means that FreeFrom undertakes participatory action research to meet survivors’ needs. So far, the organisation has produced several reports on data collected from nearly 7,000 survivors.

One of these reports, Support Every Survivor, asked survivors to rank what they needed most. It found that cash assistance was the number one answer, with credit and debt relief second. Only 1.7 percent of respondents said they needed a shelter. “On average, survivors have zero dollars in savings,” says Sonya. “Yet shelters are the main offering the government has for survivors.”

“Funding allowed me to pay for needed expenses without reaching out to my harm-doer for financial support. That alone is an indescribable gift. It was also a huge help to my mental health,” says a survivor who received a Safety Fund grant.

Through its Safety Fund cash assistance programme, FreeFrom has disbursed over USD 2.2 million in more than 8,800 emergency cash grants directly to survivors. It has supported about 2,000 survivors to save more than USD 823,000 through its national Savings Match Programme.

FreeFrom has produced a National Survivor Financial Security Policy Map And Scorecard, which catalogues how well state laws protect survivors’ financial security. It shows where the legislative gaps are. “Since we launched that scorecard, there have been over 600 bills introduced across all 50 states to support survivors’ financial security,” says Sonya. “These are laws that say you can’t be fired, or evicted, for experiencing gender-based violence, or that you’re not responsible for coerced debt.”

In February 2024, a federal bill that allows the US to gather data on economic abuse occurring within banks and other financial institutions was introduced. This focus on economic abuse, and survivors’ material resources, marks a sea change in how survivors are supported at the federal level. It is critical to FreeFrom’s survivor-driven approach and belief that a criminal justice response is not the only way to achieve safety.

Surviving Economic Abuse
UK-based charity Surviving Economic Abuse (SEA) also carries out research and evidence to inform stakeholders about what survivors need materially to stay safe.

“Abusers often start, continue, or escalate economic abuse after someone has left them,” explains Sara D’Arcy, SEA’s head of advocacy and communications. “Abusers make it difficult for survivors to rebuild their lives, and this is a primary reason survivors end up returning to abusive partners.”

SEA uses research to call on policy makers, service providers, and financial institutions worldwide to consider economic abuse in their decision making. SEA’s landmark report, Economic Abuse: A Global Perspective, brings together evidence from six continents to explore the global prevalence and existing responses to economic abuse.

“Women have been grappling with this and struggling with it, but there’s been no name for it,” says Sara, which is why the organisation sought to secure a definition of economic abuse in the 2021 UK Domestic Abuse Act. It’s also why it works directly with banks to find practical solutions to support survivors.

“When you’re having money troubles, you’re more likely to speak to your bank than anyone else,” says Sara. “This is why we’ve worked with the financial services sector to name ‘economic control’ as a life event that makes people vulnerable and we work with banks to implement practical responses to support survivors.”

A successful example of this has been SEA’s work with Starling Bank to create a feature for survivors to hide payment references. The idea came directly from a survivor who contacted SEA in distress after her abusive partner kept sending child maintenance payments accompanied by abusive messages.

Another example of survivor-led work has been the pilot of a new Economic Abuse Evidence form, devised by Money Advice Plus (MAP), which runs the Financial Support Line, and is piloted in partnership with SEA. The form enables a debt adviser who is supporting a survivor to share information about their experiences of abuse with multiple creditors. For example, survivors often have five to seven different creditors. It can be really traumatic going to each one and having to re-explain the situation.

“Creating a process where they just tell their story once to a debt advisor, who can then speak on their behalf to creditors, reduces the need for survivors to keep going over traumatic information,” Sara D’Arcy, head of advocacy and communications at SEA.

So far, SEA and MAP have seen over one million pounds of coerced debt being written off, enabling survivors to move on with their lives. Both FreeFrom and SEA are committed to securing safety for survivors experiencing economic abuse. Oak supports SEA and MAP through its Issues Affecting Women Programme. We believe that all women and girls should be safe, free and have an equal chance to thrive. We find inspiration and hope in strong and vibrant movements, built and led by women, which are transforming lives and communities across the world

Check out the video below to find out what Oak partners are doing to support women experiencing economic abuse.