Economic abuse refers to situations in which power is used to restrict an individual’s financial decision-making, access to economic resources, or where the individual is exploited financially.
CHILDREN. Economic abuse directed at children may include, for example, a parent taking out loans in the child’s name, failing to meet the child’s financial needs, or treating children within the family unequally in financial matters.
ADULTS. Economic abuse in intimate relationships may manifest, for example, as complete control over financial matters, misuse of a partner’s money, or financial harm inflicted after separation.
OLDER PEOPLE. A perpetrator (e.g. an adult child) may use an older person’s funds or property for their own benefit or coerce them into signing financial documents. Older people are also targeted by, for example, online scams, identity fraud, and romance scams.
In Finland, there is currently no population-level data on the prevalence of economic abuse, its forms across different life stages, or on who is at particular risk or what its consequences are. The functioning of the service system in situations of economic abuse has also not been studied.
The knowledge generated in the project on the targeting, forms, and consequences of economic abuse helps to identify barriers to accessing support and to develop responses to these challenges.
The project develops tools for identifying and assessing economic abuse directed at children and older people, as well as a practice model for multi-agency support for those experiencing intimate partner violence.