What Is Coercive Control and How to Spot It?
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Coercive control is a form of domestic abuse that involves controlling, isolating, and intimidating a partner or family member to maintain power over them. This can include isolating them from family and friends, depriving victims of basic needs such as food, and monitoring their behaviour. Some charities, such as Amina Scotland, reported that victims even had their access to contraception controlled and had to ask permission to wash and brush their teeth.
It also happens to be one of the most hidden and misunderstood aspects of domestic abuse – and this is often exacerbated by societal norms within patriarchal cultures that push victims into silence and acceptance.
The charity Women’s Aid has described coercive control as being bound by “invisible chains,” which feels like an apt description both of the campaign of controlling and belittling that victims face, but also the way they are forced to become dependent on the perpetrator, who chips away at their self-esteem and independence over time. Victims can feel bound to their abusers’ whims and are often gaslit into thinking that they somehow deserved the abuse.
Of course, behaviour like this has been inflicted upon women since time immemorial, but it is not just us as a society that has been slow to tackle this widespread issue; the law is far behind as well. Despite it being only 10 years since the UK criminalised this form of abuse under the Serious Crime Act 2015, with a maximum sentence of five years, it was surprisingly one of the first countries in the world to do so.
Still, though, many victims don’t feel the legal system is a safe space for them. Figures from the Met Police revealed that between 2021 and 2025, 59 percent of domestic violence cases were withdrawn before they reached the courts.
While coercive control occurs in all communities, in some patriarchal cultures, there is a cultural gaslighting that takes place where coercive control is not seen as abuse, but rather normalised and enabled by community expectations. In fact, tolerating it is seen as a badge of honour and a sign of being an obedient and pious wife. There is also sometimes the attitude that if the abuse is not physical or sexual, it is not real abuse – reinforcing the silence and secrecy under which many victims are forced to suffer.
Read more https://www.amaliah.com/post/71030/how-to-spot-emotional-abuse-in-relationship
Content retrieved from: https://www.amaliah.com/post/71030/how-to-spot-emotional-abuse-in-relationship.
