Understanding Post Separation Economic Abuse

For decades, victim-survivors of domestic abuse have been asked, ‘why don’t you just leave?’.

This question illustrates a lack of understanding of how coercive control operates, the safety implications for women attempting to separate, as well as the finances required to separate and remain separated. However, a further fallacy is also at play – the assumption that the abuse ends when the relationship ends.

Through PhD research with victim-survivors and domestic abuse support workers in Scotland, this presentation will explore the various tactics of economic abuse that perpetrators introduce post-separation to continue their campaign of power and control over victim-survivors’ lives. The session will highlight how post-separation economic abuse includes a variety of interpersonal as well as formal tactics – illustrating how perpetrators are able to facilitate abuse through institutions, such as banks, and via legal processes which are intended to provide justice.

With permission from the Domestic Abuse Intervention Program (DAIP), Jenn has adopted the original Duluth Power and Control Wheel to situate the participants’ experiences of post-separation economic power and control and will present this newly adapted wheel to illustrate key findings from her research.

Facilitator: Jenn has spent 10 years working in research, policy and educational roles in the field of violence against women. She holds an LL.M. in International Human Rights Law and a MRes in Public Policy Research. Jenn is a PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow, where her research examines economic abuse, the costs of separation and support available for victim-survivors in Scotland. Alongside her role as PhD candidate, she also works as the Banking Specialist for the charity Surviving Economic Abuse. In 2020, Jenn was a visiting scholar in the Center on Violence Against Women and Children at Rutgers University in the US. She has developed an expertise in economic abuse and banking and has undertaken key research collaborations with the Royal Bank of Scotland and is currently seconded to Lloyds Banking Group.