Dr. Nicola Sharp-Jeffs is Founder and Chief Executive of Surviving Economic Abuse and an expert in economic abuse within the context of coercive control. In this episode, Nicola joins the podcast to discuss the impact of economic abuse - control over economic resources - which is experienced by the majority of victims of abuse. Banks and other financial institutions are vital in supporting victims and survivors. In fact, Nicola explains that victims will often talk with their bank about the situation before speaking to other authorities like the police about the abuse they have experienced. Take a listen to find out what financial institutions can do, and the important progress made in the UK in recent years. __ If you, or someone you know, are experiencing abuse, you can find out more about economic abuse and how to safeguard your economic wellbeing at SEA's website: survivingeconomicabuse.org SEA does not provide direct support or advice to victims. However, if you are experiencing economic abuse within the context of domestic abuse or are supporting someone who is in that situation, immediate help is available. In the UK, contact the National Domestic Violence Helpline on 0808 2000 247 or the Men’s Advice Line on 0808 801 0327. If you are in immediate danger, call the police on 999.
Find out more about Surviving Economic Abuse at: survivingeconomicabuse.org
Alice Merry (00:04):
Welcome to the podcast that takes a feminist look at the world of money. My name is Alice Merry and this is the Feminist Finance podcast.
Alice Merry (00:16):
In this episode, I speak with Dr. Nicola Sharp-Jeffs. Nicola is founder and chief executive of Surviving Economic Abuse. It's a fantastic charity and the only UK charity dedicated to raising awareness of and transforming responses to economic abuse. Nicola had been working for many years in the violence against women and girls sector when, in 2016, she was made a Winston Churchill fellow. The fellowship allowed her to travel to the United States and to Australia to explore how these two countries were responding to a lesser known kind of domestic violence, economic abuse. When Nicola returned from the fellowship, she became determined to make sure that women in the UK had the same kind of access to responses to economic abuse that she'd seen in Australia and in the US. And on the back of that, she decided to establish the charity. I start the interview by asking that Nicola to tell us what economic abuse is.
Alice Merry (01:19):
Hi Nicola, welcome to the Feminist Finance podcast. A real treat to have you with us today.
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (01:25):
Well, thank you very much for having me.
Alice Merry (01:27):
Maybe you can start by telling us, for those of us listening who don't know about it, what is economic abuse?
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (01:34):
Well, economic abuse sits within a broader coercive and controlling context, where somebody who is being abused can't act freely and make the choices that they want to, and the perpetrator will put into place a lot of controlling tactics and behaviors to create that situation. Mostly, abusers recognize that if they can decrease the social, economic, and personal resources of a survivor, then their ability to make their own choices is diminished. And economic abuse is where the focus is really on taking away or destabilizing someone's access to economic resources. And that can be things like money, but it can be things like access to transportation, to accommodation. It can be as basic as access to food and clothing.
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (02:32):
So perpetrators will use a number of different tactics, either to create economic dependency by removing access to those things or creating economic instability, where a survivor might have access to those things, but the abuser is demanding access to them also. So perhaps not contributing to household bills or perhaps taking out debt in the victim's name. So basically, doing anything they can do to create dependency or instability and making it really difficult for someone to leave and to rebuild their life independently.
Alice Merry (03:05):
And economic abuse is extremely frequent, isn't it? Alongside other kinds of abuse, like physical abuse or emotional abuse that listeners might be more familiar with.
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (03:15):
That's right. Economic abuse, in terms of the victims and survivors we work with, will have been experienced in around 95% of domestic abuse cases. It's an invisible form of abuse in the sense that unlike physical abuse, for example, it doesn't leave bruises. So it's something that goes unnoticed, certainly by society, and individuals may struggle to recognize it themselves. And that's another reason why economic abuse is so common. Probably, it's one of the first controlling and coercive tactics that a perpetrator will use, and they might be able to introduce some kind of economic control or create instability through what looks like caring behavior, initially. So they might say things like, "I earn enough to look after the family. Perhaps you don't need to work. Maybe you could stay at home looking after the children." Or they might say, "Leave the finances to me. I'll take care of them." Or a slight overlap with emotional abuse, they might say, "You're not very good at managing finances, so why don't you leave those to me."
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (04:12):
So in the beginning, it might look like these behaviors, as I said, are quite caring and almost doing a survivor a favor. But over time, it's clear that this becomes more insidious and has an impact to the point that a survivor might not then have access perhaps to their own bank account.
Alice Merry (04:30):
Can you tell us a bit more about how economic abuse impacts on people, both when they're in a relationship and then when they are trying to escape and rebuild their lives after an abusive relationship?
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (04:43):
When someone's experiencing economic abuse in a relationship, they might not notice that that's happening. A lot of survivors say that they are struggling so much just to survive, perhaps to cope with physical or sexual abuse, that they might not notice the economic abuse. And we also know that economic abuse tends to thread through and reinforce other forms of abuse. So it might not be very easy for them to see at the time. Having said that, some survivors are denied access to resources to such an extent that they can't even turn a light on or turn on the heating without the permission of the perpetrator, and might even be experiencing hunger and living in real poverty. So in those cases, they would be very aware. And we see a real overlap with emotional abuse here in the sense that they might feel very degraded, very worthless, and come to think that perhaps they don't deserve anything more. And certainly that if they left, they wouldn't, find someone else who, in the abuser's terminology, might "put up with them" because they'll have been made to feel so worthless and so "lucky" to be with the abuser.
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (05:50):
For all women moving forward, that point at which they need to leave might be a point of recognition of economic abuse or be a point of real panic for someone who already knows that they have diminished economic resources. Because all of a sudden, the reality of leaving will mean a bus fare, money to buy petrol for the car, overnight accommodation, the immediate things that you need in order to be able to flee. But then also on a more long to medium term basis, the ability to rebuild a life, to find a new permanent home, to settle children back in school and buy school uniforms, for example, to find a job that enables them to live their life independently going forward. So real challenges, both within the relationship and also after having left an abuser.
Alice Merry (06:36):
Given these impacts, it's really quite astounding that there is so little on the public radar about economic abuse. It'd be really interesting to hear a bit more about how you started working on this issue.
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (06:50):
Well, I think there are a number of reasons why this issue has been invisible. I'm quite UK-centric in terms of how I explain that, but I'm guessing other contexts might be similar. So I think there's been perhaps a kind of hierarchy of harm where people perhaps think physical and sexual abuse is more harmful and that should be where our resources and energy is put in the first instance. But I think what has happened in the last 10 years or so is a recognition that actually in order to be physically safe, you do need to be economically safe because we know a primary reason for not leaving, as I explained, might not be having access to economic resources. So that transportation to leave and that accommodation to move into, which means a lot of survivors stay for longer than they want to. And so therefore, inevitably, they're going to experience more physical, sexual, psychological harm as a consequence because they simply can't remove themselves from what they know is a harmful situation.
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (07:48):
But I do think survivors themselves have been very aware. This is how I came into the space, I suppose, because when I did speak to survivors who had fled and who had recognized the extent of economic abuse, this issue just threaded through everything that they told me. So I was working for a service provider at the time and talking to survivors about all sorts of different issues. But whatever issue we talked about, whether it be child contact, the criminal justice system, whether it be access to accommodation, this issue of economic abuse just threaded through everything that they said. And I remember thinking, "God, I need to understand more about this issue if we're going to be able to solve some of these issues that are being raised by survivors." And when I went to find some research in economic abuse or to look at some practical responses to it, I really couldn't see anything.
Alice Merry (08:41):
So you decided to address this issue directly, and you set up Surviving Economic Abuse. Can you tell us a bit more about the approach that the charity takes to economic abuse?
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (08:53):
Absolutely. So the charity was founded to raise awareness of this issue, first and foremost. So to help society recognize it and to know how to respond to it and how to support survivors. So, that is the first thing that we do. And then we also want to transform responses to it. And that can be within the domestic abuse sector, but also more broadly. So talking to debt and money advisors, to financial services, to housing providers. Any frontline service that would come into contact with a victim or survivor is someone that we want to work with. But at the same time, we do recognize that economic abuse doesn't happen in isolation, that survivors will commonly also be experiencing the physical, sexual, psychological, and other forms of controlling behavior like isolation. So it's really important to us that we are not a direct service provider because we know that responses to survivors need to be absolutely holistic. So what we'll do is work to increase the capacity of those existing services to be able to respond to this issue better, and really, as I said a little bit earlier, to really push this message that actually, if we're not tackling economic safety, we're not creating economic stability, and we're not de-linking a survivor financially from a perpetrator, then we can't create economic safety and therefore physical safety.
Alice Merry (10:16):
You've mentioned that one of the key groups that you work with, as well as service providers, is financial institutions like banks, for example. What is the role of financial services in helping either prevent or facilitate this kind of abuse?
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (10:31):
Well, financial services have a huge role to play because as a society, it's quite difficult to survive without access to finances. So money, I suppose, in the first instance, and therefore victims and survivors when they do reach crisis point, actually after friends and family, are more likely to talk to a bank or other kind of financial institution than they are to report to the police or to tell any other statutory agency. So financial services play a really key role and really will feature in someone's experience, most likely at the point of crisis. So the ability to leave and to be able to take money out of a cash point machine and to make sure that a perpetrator hasn't, for example, closed down that joint bank account that they're trying to access money from. So banks can play a really important role, in terms of helping facilitate someone's ability to leave safely and to be able to rebuild their life and help them deal with any issues.
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (11:30):
So things like de-linking from a perpetrator, removing yourself from a joint bank account, closing one down, trying to deal with a joint mortgage, for example. And then also trying to ensure that there's as much financial stability for a survivor as is possible. So perhaps advising them about any debts that they might not be aware of or savings or some kind of hardship fund that they might be able to access, so that they have the financial resources they need.
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (11:55):
But at the same time, and on the flip side, and why we do a lot of work with the banks is because sometimes they inadvertently facilitate abuse through some of their processes. So when banks really can do a good job, they're normally having to operate outside of their standard procedures and their policies. So for example, in relation to a joint bank account or mortgage, generally there'd be the need to gain the consent of the other party before doing anything to those products. So for example, closing them down or freezing them, but there's more and more recognition in the case of domestic abuse, then what they're actually doing is facilitating that ongoing control by the abuser. And so increasingly, we're seeing recognition of that and wanting to challenge the abuser and closing down the opportunities for them to abuse.
Alice Merry (12:40):
It's so interesting to hear that survivors are often speaking to banks before they're even speaking to other authorities like the police. I wonder, when you speak with victims and you speak with survivors, what do they tell you about these initial experiences that they have, speaking with banks?
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (12:58):
Well, when I first started in this area, we did a piece of research about the response of banks. That was a couple of years ago now, and actually, banks did very little at that time. The context has really changed quite a bit, and survivors felt very disempowered. They didn't feel heard, they felt ashamed, they felt embarrassed. Sometimes they received victim blaming responses from the bank who would say, "Gosh, I can't believe you got yourself into that situation, or how could you not have noticed what was happening?" So again, in the UK context, there has been a real shift, I would say.
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (13:33):
So two things, really. The first is that there's an increased focus on customer vulnerability. So issues such as mental health or bereavement or gambling is something that banks have really woken up to. And domestic abuse is one of those issues which they're now considering in relation to the customer vulnerability agenda.
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (13:52):
And UK Finance, which is kind of the overarching body that supports financial institutions, has actually created a code of practice. So they've set out a number of principles that banks really, and building societies as well, should adhere to when responding. So this would be things like making sure that staff are trained, that customers don't have to keep repeating what's happened to them over and over again, that the bank will look to see what's going on in relation to someone's finances, perhaps if they've not had any access to them for a period of time.
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (14:23):
So there's been a real change in the financial services policy space, but at the same time, the government brought forward a new bill, new legislation around domestic abuse, again, a couple of years ago. And as a charity, we recognized there was an opportunity there for economic abuse to actually be recognized in policy and statute. So up until then, we'd had a policy definition which was what people were requested to abide by, but there was certainly no obligation to do so.
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (14:57):
So the new bill introduces a statutory definition that people do need to follow. And similarly, when the policy definition existed, it very much referred to financial abuse. And that's quite often used interchangeably with the term economic abuse. But as I've been explaining, we see financial abuse as being a subset of economic. So financial would be access to money and finances, whereas economic abuse is access to any kind of economic resource, be that food, clothing, accommodation, and so on and so forth. So I think those two factors have really created a change, and certainly within the last year since the code of practice has been implemented, we are really hearing lots more positive things now from survivors.
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (15:40):
In fact, one survivor contacted us just this morning to say that for the first time since 2016, I think, where they've been really grappling with this issue, they actually have spoken to their bank and had a really helpful response, that they've had some fees refunded, and that they feel for the first time that they have an opportunity to move forward, and that they feel so positive about that. So it's still incremental, but I think we're really starting to see a difference in terms of the experiences of victims and survivors.
Alice Merry (16:12):
That's brilliant to hear, and I think it really highlights that sometimes it's quite small changes that banks and financial institutions can put into place that can have a really big impact on victims and on survivors.
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (16:25):
Yeah, I would say... that's certainly something that we will say through our training because it can be really overwhelming for someone who's working in financial services to suddenly think, "Gosh, I need to be able to respond to this issue, and this can be life and death, and what a responsibility." But actually, to listen to a survivor, to believe them and to do what they can, can really instill a great sense of confidence in the survivor. It can really challenge what a perpetrator might have been telling them. So these things like you're not very good at managing money, someone in the bank can really counter that kind of message. And even doing small things can make a huge difference. And as I say, give them the confidence to reach out to more people and get the support that they need, perhaps from the criminal justice system or from an employer. It really can be, I think, the first step to getting support more broadly.
Alice Merry (17:16):
It's so interesting and it's so important that if this is one of the early points of contact a victim has with their bank, that that could give them the confidence or not to reach out to other authorities.
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (17:29):
Absolutely.
Alice Merry (17:30):
And I suppose it's not just the kind of process changes we've talked about, like the changing the processes around closing joint bank accounts. It's also about how survivors are spoken to and how survivors are made to feel when they try and speak with their bank.
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (17:47):
Yeah, I think so. And again, part of the training's about creating empathy with victims. It's creating an understanding of the situation that they're in. We have an interesting dynamic sometimes, because quite often both parties will bank with the same bank, and that can create a conflict of interest from their perspective, in the sense that they have a duty of care for both the abuser and the victim. And so they are hesitant to "take sides" and do something that would not necessarily be viewed as positive by the other party. But we're often been able to provide examples where it's very clear that the perpetrator has taken action, which actually isn't good for themselves economically. So they might stop paying a mortgage, they might refuse a new mortgage rate, to the point where the house might go into arrears and potentially even repossession. And it becomes very clear if the bank can see actually they could afford to pay the mortgage, or there's no reason why they shouldn't be agreeing to new rates, that actually their behavior is just about control.
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (18:48):
And so in situations like that, actually to act against their wishes doesn't have a negative financial impact on the perpetrator at all. But they just need to do so carefully and with the support of a domestic abuse service, working with the survivor, to make sure that those actions don't create additional risk because the perpetrator is being challenged.
Alice Merry (19:11):
Lots of people who listen to this podcast work inside financial institutions. And I'd love to hear from you - if someone is listening to this podcast, and they're thinking, "This is so relevant for where I work, and I don't think we have anything in place in my workplace," what could they start to do to make sure that the bank or the institution that they're working in better supports victims and survivors of economic abuse?
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (19:38):
Well, there's two things that financial institutions could be doing, which are interrelated. So the first is also making sure that colleagues are okay because we're talking about customers, but we know a lot of employees will be experiencing domestic abuse. And so really, a lot of employees will be perpetrating it as well. And it's really difficult to ask our colleagues to support customers if you're not actually supporting those colleagues themselves. So talking to HR teams, thinking about what policies can be put in place for employees, so that if they are experiencing domestic abuse, they feel that they are able to raise that with their employer and to be supported. And then making sure that they're well cared for, before there's an expectation to be supporting customers. So for us that's really the first step.
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (20:27):
And then to look at what can be done for customers. So is there a vulnerability agenda within the context that you're working? Could there be another way of introducing this issue, in terms of the wellbeing of customers? We know from our colleagues in Australia that not only is there a moral case to do this, but there is actually a financial case as well, because to support customers in this way means that it creates an awful lot of loyalty. And when they do get to a point of being more economically stable, if they do have any debts with a financial institution that has believed them, responded to them, supported to them, then they are more likely to start paying debt back to that financial institution. So in the long run there is a financial return. It's unlikely a customer's going to leave a bank that has responded to them so well at a point of crisis. So there's lots of different ways of trying to kind of create an argument, whether that be the financial case or from a customer vulnerability perspective, as I say.
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (21:26):
And then also to reach out in the same way that we did in the UK context to other countries. So, what are other people doing, rather than me invent the wheel and start from scratch, can we learn from other people? At Surviving Economic Abuse, we have resources for people who work in banks, spotting signs, how to have conversations with people. Similarly, we provide resources for customers to actually start having those conversations with the banks as well. So there is actually quite a lot out there and I would just encourage people to access that, to have conversations with people who are doing this work, and to see how they can develop it in their own context, going forward.
Alice Merry (22:05):
And Surviving Economic Abuse has fantastic resources on its website. I will put a link to the website in the show notes. Nicola, I wanted to take us back a bit. Earlier in the interview, you mentioned the draft Domestic Abuse Bill. Can you tell us what is the bill proposing in relation to economic abuse?
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (22:24):
Well, the bill actually recognizes economic abuse as a thing for the first time. So it recognizes that alongside physical, sexual, emotional, and other controlling behaviors, economic abuse does exist. So that's really powerful because it provides a fantastic framework for us to A, raise awareness of this issue because it is named, and it now means that all the statutory agencies involved in this area, be that social services or the police or welfare and benefits, everyone is going to have to start recognizing economic abuse and doing something to respond to it. So in that way, creating the awareness through inclusion of economic abuse in the definition will, in and of itself, start to transform responses to this issue. But at the same time, it also means that perpetrators will be held more and more responsible for their behavior.
Alice Merry (23:20):
The Domestic Abuse Bill hasn't been passed yet, is that correct?
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (23:25):
It's had what I would call an up and down journey, so it's fallen a couple of times due to the general election and various other political happenings in the UK, but it was reintroduced by the queen in her speech in January of this year, having kind of already reached committee stage before the election. So in some ways, they're kind of starting again, but we have been assured by the prime minister that it will be reintroduced before Easter.
Alice Merry (23:52):
That's really good news. I think in general that how we manage our finances is such an important topic, especially for many women, especially for young women, I think they feel quite unprepared for dealing with their finances in relationships. I'd love to know how you think we can address this topic. How can we help women better manage their finances in relationships and better protect themselves financially within a relationship?
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (24:21):
I think it operates on two levels, really. I think there's the societal piece. So again, these myths and stereotypes that exist about how men should be in charge, how men are generally more confident, how women apparently aren't particularly good at managing finances. So I think all of these myths and stereotypes and these inequalities, which mean that a lot of women kind of start on the back foot, really need to be addressed in the first place. And then clearly a role for education more and more, at least within the UK context, there's a focus on financial capability, but it treats money very much as something that's quite abstract, and it doesn't kind of recognize how it links to society more broadly. So for example, it doesn't look at how money is power, and how money creates or takes away the ability to make choices, to be independent, to live the life that you want to.
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (25:14):
So I think to start having conversations with young people about the power of money, what it does mean socially, what it might mean for them in terms of their relationships and their lives going forward. So clearly therefore, it also links into things like discussions about careers, making sure girls aren't pushed into kind of the low paid sector. There are discussions about caring responsibilities, all those sorts of things that could really just make sure that, when children do leave school, that they kind of have the knowledge that they need in order to negotiate things like joint finances going forward.
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (25:54):
But at the same time, and again I think this is probably again just reflective of where we are as a society, there's only the last few generations where actually joint finances in this way are something that needs to be managed because there's more and more women in the workplace, more women contributing to the family income, more women now actually bringing in more income perhaps from their partner, if they're in a heterosexual relationship. So it's also about saying and having an exploration about what is fair and equitable, how should finances be managed? Again, a recognition of power in relation to that. So that this issue is at the front of young women's minds, that they're mindful of it and that they can take actions, which means that they're in the most economically stable position that they can be, because to be economically stable will reduce their vulnerability to abuse
Alice Merry (26:46):
And financial institutions have been criticized for reinforcing these kinds of stereotypes through their marketing, through some of their processes. Where do you see their role in shifting our conversations around money?
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (27:00):
Well, I think there's a role to be played in terms of working with educational institutions coming in, helping to give young people the idea of the reality of managing money on a day to day basis, how to engage with financial products and things like that. But at the same time, I think there's something really important in terms of actually how the financial institutions are developing their financial products going forward, and even as basic as looking at their current systems. So something that we hear quite a lot of, in terms of the joint mortgages piece, is that because it was only in the 1970s in the UK where a woman could have a mortgage in her own name. Up until then she had to have the consent of either a husband or a father. The legacy systems mean that the man's name always comes first in a joint mortgage, even if they haven't contributed as much money to it or perhaps don't earn as much money, they will always be that primary point of contact. And in some cases, a bank will refuse to speak to the other party, which again inadvertently facilitates power for the male party, who generally is more likely to be the abuser, although that's not always the case. They're really sort of basic things like that to just ensure that both parties are recognized, that both parties are heard and listened to, could make a huge difference.
Alice Merry (28:17):
You've mentioned already the draft Domestic Abuse bill, the financial code of practice, and your ongoing work with banks. What else is on the cards for surviving economic abuse this year?
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (28:29):
Well, we want to continue helping professionals recognize economic abuse within their own contexts, and to then work with them to explore what that means for the policies and the procedures that they work within going forward. So we can do that on a kind of firm by firm basis, but also with the industry more broadly. So we're really excited to be working with people like UK Finance and the Financial Ombudsman, the Association of British Insurers, the Chartered Institute of Insurers. Everyone who's in the financial space are people that we want to talk to, really. Because what's really important for survivors is creating consistency across financial institutions, so they feel that they're being fairly treated wherever they go. Because it can be very hard to get a great response in one place and not so good a response in another.
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (29:21):
All our work has been informed, as you say, by our Experts by Experience, so the victims and survivors who work alongside us. But at the same time, this year, we're also quite keen to create more of a national conversation, so to invite more survivors to come forward, to tell us about their experiences, to make sure that we really understand what's going on, that we are talking to the right stakeholders. And we'll be working with the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, which is a role that is created by the Domestic Abuse Bill. So a new independent party who will help make sure that the bill itself is implemented going forward, will be supporting us in that kind of national evidence gathering exercise around this issue and helping us keep the momentum going, in terms of what comes next.
Alice Merry (30:07):
I'd like to finish by asking you what is really the central question of this podcast. I'd love to know from you, what would a feminist financial system look like?
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (30:18):
Well, I think a feminist financial system would almost look like what it says on the tin, really. It would recognize gender in the financial system. So a number of the issues that I've been talked about mean that inequality, stereotypes around gender have really shaped the system that we operate within and often puts women and victims and survivors of economic abuse at a real disadvantage. So we'd want to look at how the system can be transformed so that's not the case.
Nicola Sharp-Jeffs (30:51):
And that's not about treating both genders equally, necessarily. It's recognizing that they start from a different starting point. So it's about bringing women up to the point which men are at. And again, as I spoke about, really making sure that systems and products going forward really consider gender. But at the same time, we recognize that women do have multiple identities, that we have women of certain ethnic backgrounds, women of different sexualities, disabled women, women of different socioeconomic groups. So it's really important that we also understand how these different inequalities intersect. And how some women really are at the margins, and that there might be more that we need to do to bring them into the system and have a system that actually works for them. So we would love a feminist but intersectional financial system going forward.
Alice Merry (31:47):
I've known Nicola for a few years, and she's such an inspiring person. And the work that Surviving Economic Abuse does is so important. And even though I've been speaking with her about this topic over some time, I actually didn't know before we recorded the interview today, the fact that people who've experienced abuse are regularly speaking with their bank before they're speaking with any other kind of authority like the police. So banks, in some ways, are becoming a first point of contact in some cases for people who've experienced abuse and particularly economic abuse.
Alice Merry (32:24):
And I think that really drives home how important it is that we work in the financial sector, really understand the experience of coercion and control around somebody's money and somebody's economic resources and we're prepared to be proactive in supporting victims and survivors of economic abuse.
Alice Merry (32:45):
So if you're working in a financial institution, and you're interested in how your institution could better respond to victims and survivors, please do get in touch. I'd love to talk to you more about it and point you in the direction of more resources. In the meantime, please do rate the podcast. Please do leave us a review. And I look forward to speaking with you next time.