coercive-control

Coercive Control

Coercive control is a pattern of domination — isolation, intimidation, monitoring, and financial and emotional control — that defines much Intimate Partner Violence and Domestic Violence, and which physical assault alone fails to capture. It is the dynamic that makes Tech-Enabled Abuse so potent: surveillance and information-control are not incidental to the abuse, they are the abuse. Tools designed for stranger danger often miss it; survivor-centred resources such as My Safety Kit are built around it.

In this vault

Subtype ofGender-Based Violence
Manifests inTech-Enabled Abuse
Related toStalking

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stalking

Stalking

Stalking is a perpetrator’s use of a repeated, unwanted pattern of harassing or threatening tactics that causes a victim to feel fear or concern for their safety. Tactics range from following, showing up at a home or workplace, and sending unwanted gifts or messages, to surreptitious, technology-facilitated methods such as GPS tracking, spying through cameras or Stalkerware, and relentless contact via phone, text and social media. The defining elements are repetition and induced fear; this overlaps closely with Coercive Control and with Location Tracking Abuse, since the same monitoring that terrorises a victim also enables further control. Most victims know their stalker — intimate partners and acquaintances are the most common perpetrators.

It is widespread. The CDC’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey finds that roughly 1 in 5 women and 1 in 10 men experience stalking during their lifetime, with state-level female lifetime prevalence ranging from about 15.6% to 35.2%. Nearly 58% of female and 49% of male victims were first stalked before age 25. US Bureau of Justice Statistics data has estimated millions of stalking and harassment victims each year. Crucially, the technology-facilitated tactics that require no physical proximity are often the hardest to detect, so their true prevalence is likely underestimated — a core challenge for Tech-Enabled Abuse response.

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Sources

https://www.cdc.gov/intimate-partner-violence/about/about-stalking.html
https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/svus_rev.pdf

Tags: #concept #violence

tech-enabled-abuse

Tech-Enabled Abuse

Tech-enabled abuse (also called technology-facilitated abuse) is the use of everyday digital tools — phones, accounts, smart-home devices, trackers, social media — to monitor, control, intimidate, or harm a partner, ex-partner, or family member. It is rarely a separate “online” problem: surveillance and harassment through devices typically operate as one channel of a broader pattern of Coercive Control, and they frequently overlap with offline Stalking and physical violence. NNEDV’s Safety Net Project notes that abusers are “often very determined to maintain control,” and technology is one of many tools they use; the abuse “does not always remain online and could escalate to other forms of violence.” Australia’s eSafety Commissioner frames it as conduct including monitoring and surveillance, cyberstalking with tracking, impersonation, hacking, and harassment, deployed within Intimate Partner Violence and Domestic Family and Sexualised Violence.

The category spans covert spyware (Stalkerware), GPS and Bluetooth Location Tracking Abuse, account takeover, and the weaponising of shared devices and family plans. Because the same features that protect a Victim-Survivor — Location Sharing, cloud backups, “find my device” — can be turned against them, tech-enabled abuse sits in permanent tension with Privacy and Safety and is the threat model any Personal Safety Apps design must take seriously through Discreet Access, minimal data retention, and Trauma-Informed Design.

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gender-based-violence

Gender-Based Violence

Gender-based violence (GBV) is violence directed at a person because of their gender, or that affects one gender disproportionately. It is the umbrella over Domestic Violence, Intimate Partner Violence, Sexual Violence, Stalking and Coercive Control — the harms the tools and resources in this vault aim to prevent, interrupt, document or respond to.

In this vault

IncludesIntimate Partner Violence
IncludesSexual Violence
IncludesCoercive Control
IncludesDomestic Family and Sexualised Violence

my-safety-kit

My Safety Kit

Insight Exchange (DVSM) · Reflection resource (booklet + animations + decision-making tool) · Free

Summary

My Safety Kit is a reflection resource from Insight Exchange for people who are, or may be, experiencing domestic, family and sexualised violence. Rather than triggering an alarm, it supports a person “at their pace, at their lead” with information and reflection questions about how they see their situation and what they might be weighing as they look ahead. It includes a decision-making tool and reflection questions across areas of wellbeing — material basics / economic wellbeing, love and connection, participation, learning, physical and mental health, and safety — and is available as a booklet (including a My Safety Kit Aotearoa edition) with short introductory animations.

It is accompanied by de-identified lived-experience insights (e.g. “Sam” and “Alex”) that map real experiences against the kit’s focus areas, illustrating what a person may be doing — or not doing — to stay safe and well within their relationship.

Connections

Produced byInsight Exchange
Informed byTrauma-Informed Design
CentresVictim-Survivor
SupportsRisk Assessment
- Self-directed reflection rather than an actuarial checklist.
AddressesDomestic Family and Sexualised Violence
AddressesEconomic Abuse

Sources

https://www.insightexchange.net/my-safety-kit/

Tags: #resource #reflection #lived-experience

domestic-violence

Domestic Violence

Domestic violence (often used interchangeably with domestic abuse) is a pattern of abusive behaviour used by one person to gain or maintain power and control over another within a domestic setting — a current or former spouse, partner, or family member. It encompasses physical, sexual, psychological and economic harm, and in practice is rarely a single incident: the abuse that matters most is the sustained pattern of Coercive Control — isolation, intimidation, surveillance and restriction — that physical-injury counts alone fail to capture. While it overlaps heavily with Intimate Partner Violence, “domestic violence” is the broader frame, also covering abuse by relatives and other household members.

Globally it is one of the most common forms of Gender-Based Violence. WHO estimates that roughly 25.8% of ever-partnered women aged 15–49 have experienced physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner at least once in their lifetime, and that about 31.6% of women worldwide (around 840 million) have experienced physical/sexual partner violence or non-partner sexual violence. The lethal edge is stark: in 2023 an estimated 140 women and girls were killed every day by an intimate partner or family member. Tools and resources in this vault aim to prevent, interrupt, document or respond to these harms, increasingly mindful that abusers also weaponise technology — see Tech-Enabled Abuse.

In this vault

Subtype ofGender-Based Violence
Characterised byCoercive Control
Related toIntimate Partner Violence
Manifests inTech-Enabled Abuse

Sources

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/violence-against-women
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK499891/

Tags: #concept #violence

intimate-partner-violence

Intimate Partner Violence

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is defined by the WHO as behaviour by an intimate partner or ex-partner that causes physical, sexual or psychological harm — including physical aggression, sexual coercion, psychological abuse and controlling behaviours. It is the most common form of Domestic Violence and is best understood not as isolated assaults but as an ongoing pattern of domination; the surveillance, isolation and monitoring of Coercive Control are often the core of the abuse rather than incidental to it. This is also why Tech-Enabled Abuse is so potent in IPV: an abuser with shared accounts, devices and location data has ready-made tools for control.

IPV is strikingly prevalent. WHO estimates that about 25.8% of ever-partnered women aged 15–49 have experienced physical and/or sexual IPV at least once in their lifetime, making it the most widespread form of Gender-Based Violence against women. The Lancet’s 2018 global analysis similarly found roughly one in four ever-partnered women affected over their lifetime, with around 13% reporting partner violence in the past year. IPV is also a leading context for femicide: a large share of women killed worldwide die at the hands of an intimate partner.

In this vault

Subtype ofGender-Based Violence
Related toCoercive Control
Related toDomestic Violence
Manifests inTech-Enabled Abuse

Sources

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/violence-against-women
https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(21)02664-7/fulltext

Tags: #concept #violence