Economic Abuse & Coercive Control: What Women Need To Know

In 89% of domestic abuse cases, victims experience economic abuse. Most don't recognise it. Many don't know it has a name.

Economic abuse is one of the most powerful and least understood tools of coercive control — and it doesn't end when the relationship does. In this conversation, Laura sits down with Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs OBE, founder of Surviving Economic Abuse and one of the world's leading experts on the subject, to break down exactly what economic abuse looks like, how it works, and what can be done about it.

Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs undertook the first piece of research on economic abuse in the UK in 2006, leading to landmark changes in policy, legislation and banking practice. Her work helped ensure economic abuse was named and defined in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 — and she has spent two decades making the invisible visible.

In this interview Laura and Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs cover:

- The three forms of economic abuse — restriction, exploitation and sabotage — and what they look like in practice

- Why women with joint accounts and financial independence can still be victims of economic abuse without knowing it

- How abusers deliberately run up debt in their partner's name — and the landmark work to get banks and creditors to write that debt off

- Why economic abuse is the number one obstacle to leaving — and the number one reason for returning

- The direct link between economic abuse, coercive control and the risk of homicide and suicide

- Why staying at home with children can cost women up to $1 million in lifetime earnings — and how abusers exploit that vulnerability

- How post-separation economic abuse continues even after a perpetrator has killed their partner

- The Economic Abuse Evidence Form — and how it is helping survivors access debt relief

- Why the coercive control law needs to be updated to a maximum of ten years — and what Scotland and Australia are already doing

- Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs' top advice for anyone in or leaving a relationship where finances feel controlled

Money is power. Money is freedom. Money is choice. This conversation could change how you see both.

📖 Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs' book: Understanding and Responding to Economic Abuse — available on Amazon and via Bloomsbury

🌐 Surviving Economic Abuse: survivingeconomicabuse.org

🎧 For more from Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs, join the Crime Analyst Squad on Patreon to hear the extended interview from the May Ringleader and Life Alive event.

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