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OpinionIn India, how Covid-19 enabled new forms of economic abuse of women
- The pandemic gave abusive men new ways of controlling and abusing their wives’ finances, such as misusing their bank accounts and withholding household payments
- Indian law recognises economic abuse, but official understanding of economic abuse and its impact on women remains extremely low
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In the wake of the Covid-19 crisis, the United Nations (UN) identified what it called a “shadow pandemic” of domestic violence against women.
The UN includes in its definition of domestic violence what it refers to as “economic violence”, which it explains as: “making or attempting to make a person financially dependent by maintaining total control over financial resources, withholding access to money, and/or forbidding attendance at school or employment”.
I have been researching economic violence in India, where it surged during periods of social distancing and lockdowns. This not only resulted in the reduction of safe spaces for women and girls, but also trapped them in a space where they were more easily economically exploited. My research suggests that the coronavirus lockdowns spawned a whole new class of economic abuse of women in India.
Economic abuse tends to involve controlling and coercive behaviour by a woman’s partner and sometimes their in-laws or other family members, threatening her economic security and potential for self-sufficiency. While economic abuse can take many forms, there are three main types: sabotage, restriction and exploitation.
Sabotage usually involves interfering in a woman’s access to money or in their work. Restriction is about controlling how women use money. And exploitation most often means a male partner or relative living off a woman, or insisting all debts go in her name.
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