Coercive Control During the Pandemic: How Abusers Are Using New Tactics to Exert Power and Control
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The COVID-19 pandemic has created a shift throughout the nation and the world. With stay-at-home and social distancing orders in place across the U.S., victims of domestic and sexual violence are being forced further into seclusion with abusive partners. For many, the threat of physical and emotional violence will dominate their lives more than ever before.
This is an extremely vulnerable time for survivors, and abusers are using it as an excuse to find new ways to exert control. Some of those tactics include feigning illness, not allowing family members to interact or go outside the home at all, withdrawing all money out of bank accounts, contacting the survivor’s work and falsely stating they were exposed to the virus, etc. While some of these tactics may be new and based on the public health crisis, the dynamics of power and control remain the same.
Across the country and world, there has been a serious uptick in domestic violence related crimes. Direct service agencies are seeing an influx of new cases and in some jurisdictions, law enforcement are responding to more calls. This means that survivors need support, resources, services, and shelter more than ever. Fortunately, shelters and other resources remain open during this time as essential businesses.
Some providers have had to close their physical doors, but have remained open in their services, using digital options such as chat and video, to provide services. Many courthouses have also moved to digital services by offering remote hearings for protection orders or are extending orders until the pandemic passes. If you or your agency are considering digital services, please see our Digital Services Toolkit. Here you can find information about best practices when communicating with survivors using technology. You can also access many other resources on our COVID-19 Resources page on TechSafety.org and on NNEDV’s COVID response page.
It still remains critical, even while many things are rapidly changing, to always assess for safety and privacy risks and conduct on-going safety planning in the safest and most strategic way. We hope these resources help service providers to do that easily with the many new tools they are working to implement.
Similarly, we have also created two new resources for survivors and friends/family. Seeking Help Online: National Resources and Considerations for Safety and Privacy for Survivors provides considerations for maintaining safety and privacy when accessing online help. In partnership with Facebook, we also produced the resource, Tips for Helping a Friend Experiencing Domestic Abuse During COVID-19.
Our colleagues at the Battered Justice Women’s Project have also produced a short video on Coercive Control During COVID-19: New Tactics. Please feel free to post any of these on your website and share widely.
We wish you health during this time. If you or someone you know may need to speak to someone about what they are experiencing, visit this list of National Hotlines.
