According to the findings of a new study, women from ethnic minorities in the UK are twice as likely as white women to experience economic abuse—a form of domestic violence exerted not through physical beatings, but through controlling money, financial resources, and employment opportunities.
Although this behavior is recognized as a form of domestic abuse under UK law, because it is not overt, it often goes unseen and is not taken seriously. The research results indicate that this problem is even more severe for Muslim South Asian women, including British Pakistani and Bangladeshi women.
Many of these women have been deliberately prevented from working by their husbands and kept completely dependent on them. Some have only been able to work through secrecy and with the help of their families, as their husbands considered a woman working to be a disgrace. Consequently, when the relationship ends, these women not only have no savings but also lack sufficient work history, qualifications, or skills to re-enter the labor market.
The problem persists after divorce. Many men use child maintenance as a tool for coercion; they either pay nothing or pay a negligible amount that does not cover living costs. Of the 28 women interviewed for this report, only two said they received fair maintenance; the others either receive no support or the money that comes is more about maintaining control than supporting the child.
UK state institutions also often perform inefficiently. The Child Maintenance Service (CMS), particularly in cases with international financial traces—for example, when a husband has assets in Pakistan—has repeatedly disregarded women’s evidence. One woman says: “I gave them the numbers and addresses of his properties in Pakistan, but they just said: ‘We understand your frustration, you just have to wait.'”
But wait for how long? When children are hungry and the rent is overdue!
Some men also abuse legal and religious systems to evade financial responsibilities. One woman reported that her husband, without completing the official divorce process, remarried citing a religious permit for polygamy and transferred all his assets to his new wife. Even more astonishingly, a UK High Court judge deemed this behavior acceptable, as if it were a religious right rather than a complex form of economic abuse.
For women with uncertain immigration status, the conditions are even harsher. Some of them, until they fled to women’s shelters, had no National Insurance number, no bank account, and none of the state benefits such as child benefit. Their husbands had used their immigration status to prevent their financial independence and even undermine their self-confidence.
Overall, these women are not only facing domestic abuse but are also confronting a system that, sometimes unwittingly and sometimes knowingly, contributes to the perpetuation of this violence. From a labor market that operates discriminatorily to judicial institutions that justify certain behaviors in the name of culture and traditions.
Researchers emphasize that the solution lies only in policies that take the experiences of these women seriously, understand their cultural context, and recognize that economic abuse is not just about money—it’s about depriving individuals of agency, independence, and human dignity.
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