Coercive control is the ongoing and repetitive use of behaviours or strategies to control a current or ex intimate partner and make them feel inferior to, and dependent on, the perpetrator. It can include emotional, mental, and financial abuse, isolation, intimidation, sexual coercion and cyberstalking.
Coercive control is comprised of many linked issues, and perpetrators can erode the confidence and autonomy of the victim-survivor, and enact or threaten harm, making it virtually impossible to leave.
Many victims may not have the financial means to leave an abusive relationship, especially if financial abuse plays a role, as it often does with coercive control.
But, as our literature review shows, this isn’t well understood.