| Defining abuse |
Abuse is any pattern of behaviour that controls another person, causes physical harm, fear, and makes someone do something they don't want to or preventing them from doing things they do want to do. Abuse can be emotional, physical, sexual and financial. Abused women normally suffer from more than one of these forms of abuse. Women and children are more likely recipients of abuse than men.
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| Physical abuse/battery |
- Scratching, slapping, choking, hitting, kicking, shoving, biting, throwing things at you
- Threatening or attacking you with a weapon
- Physically restraining you
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- Locking you in or out of the house
- Abandoning you in a dangerous place
- Refusing to help you when you are injured, sick, or pregnant
- Preventing you from sleeping
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| Sexual abuse |
- Calling you bad sexual names
- Forcing you to undress
- Making you wear clothes or do sexual things that make you uncomfortable
- Withholding sex or criticizing you sexually
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- Forcing you to perform sexual acts thay you do not want to do
- Forcing you to have sex when you do not want to; raping you
- Forcing you to have sex with other people
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Emotional/psychological abuse |
- Insulting you
- Making you fell stupid or worthless
- Ridiculing your beliefs
- Humiliating you in publilc or private
- Manipulating you with lies
- Ignoring you and your feelings
- Intimidating or harassing you
- Being overly jealous or possessive
- Accusing you of infidelity without good reason
- Having affairs and flaunting them in front of you
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- Isolating you from your family and friends
- Threatening to take the children away from you or to hurt them
- Preventing you from going to work or school
- Attacking your children or pets
- Threatening to kill you, to leave you or to throw you out
- Threatening to kill himself/herself or go mad if you leave or don't do what he/she wants
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Financial/material/ economical abuse |
- Taking your money or forcing you to hand over your wages
- preventing you from having a job
- Employing you without paying you a salary
- Taking or destroying your possession or clothes
- Spending most of the money on himself/herself or giving you a very small allowance
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- Gambling away your joint funds
- Expecting you to account for every cent or do more with the money than is possible
- Refusing to give you information about you joint financial situation
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If you would like to know how to deal with abuse, please go to our Getting Help page
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