What is Domestic Abuse?
What Domestic Abuse Means
Statutory definition
“The abusive behaviour of one person towards another where they are personally connected and each is aged 16 or over.”
This statutory definition comes from the landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021 and emphasises that domestic abuse includes not only physical violence, but other forms of abuse such as coercive or controlling behaviour and economic abuse.
Domestic abuse can happen once or as part of a pattern of abusive behaviour. It is not always physical, and can include sexual abuse, threats, control and coercion and psychological or emotional abuse.
Domestic abuse can affect people in a range of relationships from people who are married to intimate partners, family members and ex-partners. Children affected by domestic abuse are victims in their own right, regardless of whether they were present during incidents of abuse.
Domestic abuse can, and does, happen to anyone in our society, regardless of background.
Further information can be found in the
What counts as abusive behaviour
The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 brought many important
changes, including a statutory definition of all forms of abusive behaviour.
A key part of an effective response as an employer is to encourage everyone in your organisation to develop an awareness of the many forms domestic abuse can take.
We have outlined some forms of abusive behaviours below. This is not an exhaustive list and everyone’s experience of domestic abuse will differ.
A full description of all abusive behaviours can be found in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 Statutory Guidance.
Controlling or Coercive Behaviour
Controlling or coercive behaviour is a systematic pattern of behaviour intended to undermine someone, that may leave no physical evidence but that causes immense harm.
This behaviour ranges from controlling someone’s daily activities, to cutting off their access to finances and isolating them from friends and family.
The following are examples of some of the range of behaviours that might be considered controlling or coercive behaviour:
- Controlling or monitoring the victim’s daily activities and behaviour, including making them account for their time, dictating what they can wear, what and when they can eat, when and where they may sleep;
- Controlling a victim’s access to finances, including monitoring their accounts;
- Isolating the victim from family, friends and professionals who may be trying to support them, intercepting messages or phone calls;
- Preventing the victim from taking medication, over-medicating them, or preventing someone from accessing health or social care;
- Using children to control someone, e.g. threatening to take the children away;
- Using animals to control or coerce a victim, e.g. harming or threatening to harm, or give away, pets or assistance dogs;
- Threatening precarious immigration status against the victim.
Coercive and controlling behaviour is a criminal offence in England and Wales under the Serious Crime Act 2015.
For an insight into coercive and controlling behaviour, watch the film: TimeKeeper. Warning: this film contains scenes you might find distressing.
Economic Abuse
Economic abuse refers to behaviour that has a substantial negative impact on a person’s ability to acquire, use or maintain money or other property, or to obtain goods or services.
Economic abuse can take subtle and insidious forms, such as secretly putting someone into debt, wrongfully taking child benefits, not paying bills, removing or controlling access to Wi-Fi, or hiding items that the other person could rely on.
Many abusers will specifically target someone’s job or career (and thus, independence/earning potential), by preventing them from being in education or employment. This could involve:
- limiting their working hours
- making them consistently late for work
- causing injury so they must call in sick
- hiding car keys or breaking glasses so they can’t drive to work
- withholding money so they can’t use public transport
- forcing them to take unpaid leave
- not allowing them to attend training courses.
Further information is available from Surviving Economic Abuse.
Harassment
Harassment involves repeated attempts to impose unwanted communications and contact upon someone with the intention of causing them alarm or distress, or to cause them to fear violence.
It includes behaviour which creates a degrading, humiliating, hostile, intimidating or offensive environment for someone and can include:
- sending threatening messages
- leaving objects at someone’s home or workplace to intimidate them
- posting humiliating or threatening content about a person online.
Honour-Based Abuse
Honour-Based abuse involves an incident or pattern of violence, threats of violence, intimidation, coercion, control or abuse motivated by a perception that a person has shamed their family or community, or has broken the perceived norms of the community’s accepted behaviours.
It can include physical, psychological, spiritual, economic and faith-related abuse, forced marriage, female genital mutilation and abduction.
This term is often enclosed in quote marks, or prefaced with ‘so-called’, to emphasise that the concept of honour in these cases is contested and that it is generally invoked as a means of power and control.
The Government plans to introduce new statutory guidance and a legal definition of ‘honour’-based abuse (HBA).
Physical Abuse
Physical abuse and violent or threatening behaviour can be a form of domestic abuse when someone hurts or injures someone else on purpose. It includes the threat of physical harm. This might include:
- being, or being threatened to be kicked, punched, pinched, pushed, dragged, shoved, slapped, scratched, strangled, spat on and bitten;
- being hurt, or threatened, with a weapon;
- objects being thrown at someone;
- violence, or threats of violence against family members;
- damaging, tampering with, or denying access to medicine, medical aids or equipment;
- preventing someone from sleeping.
Psychological and Emotional Abuse
Psychological abuse is used with the intention of manipulating and weaking the judgment and thinking of another person.
Emotional abuse is used to control another person using emotion or feelings of self-worth and self-esteem.
These types of abuse can include the regular and deliberate use of a range of words and non-physical actions for example:
- presenting insults as a joke
- gaslighting
- verbal insults
- or giving someone the silent treatment.
- intimidation and threats
- criticism
- emotional blackmail
- humiliation
- playing with someone’s emotions by being nice after being cruel.
The underlying intention of these forms of abuse is to control someone by scaring them and lowering their self-confidence and self-esteem.
Sexual Abuse
Sexual abuse involves any form of sexual activity that occurs without the full and informed consent of all parties. It can involve:
- Rape and sexual assault;
- Being pressured into sex, or sexual acts, including with other people;
- Unwanted sexual contact or demands;
- ‘Corrective’ rape (the practice of raping someone with the aim of ‘curing’ them of being LGBT+);
- Being tricked into having unsafe sex (sometimes known as stealthing);
- Forced involvement in making or watching pornography;
- Hurting a victim during sex including non-fatal strangulation ;
- Reproductive coercion e.g. restricting a partner’s access to birth control or forcing them to have an abortion.
Stalking
Stalking is a pattern of fixated and obsessive behaviour which causes fear of violence or alarm and distress for the victim-survivor.
Stalking can consist of any type of unwanted behaviour, for example:
- following someone
- damaging their property
- sending unwanted gifts
- repeated unwanted communications such as messages, phone calls or emails
- monitoring someone’s location
In the context of domestic abuse, stalking often happens after the end of a relationship with someone abusive, as well as during the relationship.
Domestic abuse affects us all
One in three women experience domestic abuse in their lifetime¹
One in five men will experience domestic abuse in their lifetime¹
of adults reporting domestic abuse said children under 16 were present²
