Signs of domestic violence.

Domestic violence or domestic abuse are terms used to broadly refer to violence, abuse and coercive control including intimate partner violence, elder abuse and child abuse. Violence and abuse can take many different forms, some of which we have outlined below.

Physical

  • Physical assault

  • Assaulting children

  • Sleep or food deprivation

  • Controlling access to medications or medical assistance

  • Driving dangerously

  • Destroying property

  • Physical restraint or controlling movements in and/or out of the home

Financial

  • Having complete control over the household finances or limiting access to bank accounts

  • Not allowing the victim to work

  • Denying their partner access to their own pay

  • Monitoring their spending

  • Using their partner’s money without permission

Verbal

  • Swearing or talking with a raised voice to intimidate

  • Humiliating or putting down in public or in front of friends

  • Constant criticism of things like intelligence or physical appearance

  • Name calling

 

Psychological and emotional

  • Blaming the victim for all the relationship problems

  • Undermining the victim’s self-worth or self-esteem

  • Withdrawing engagement with the victim

  • Emotional blackmail and suicide threats

  • Gas-lighting: denying things happened as they did

  • Threats to harm oneself

  • Threats about custody of the children

  • Telling the victim no-one will believe them

Spiritual or cultural

  • Preventing the victim from participating in religious or cultural practices

  • Ridiculing their beliefs

  • Forcing them to act against their cultural or religious beliefs

Sexual

  • Rape

  • Pressure or coercion to perform sexual activities

  • Unwanted touching

  • Taking or sharing photos without the subject’s knowledge and/or consent

 

Harassment and stalking

  • Following or monitoring someone’s whereabouts either physically or electronically

  • Harassing them or tracking their activity online

  • Sending harassing messages, constantly ringing, or sending messages through other people


Coercive control

  • Coercive control is when someone repeatedly hurts, scares or isolates another person to control them

  • It's an ongoing and repeated pattern of behaviour

  • It includes physical and non-physical behaviours

  • Everyone's experience is different

  • Coercive control can be used in any type of relationship. It can happen when people are casually dating, in a serious relationship or separated

  • Coercive control isn’t an accident. The abuser uses these behaviours to isolate, manipulate, threaten and scare the other person to control them

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