A Systemic Review of an Untold Story: The Financial Abuse

Abstract

Introduction: When most people think of domestic violence, the first thing that comes to mind is most likely verbal abuse as well as physical assault or assaulting a spouse or partner. Nevertheless, according to research, financial abuse occurs just as frequently in toxic relationships as other forms of violence. Unfortunately, the frequency of poverty among women is higher than the general population (United Nations Population Fund [UNFPA], 2005). Women constitute 70% of the world's 1.5 billion impoverished, according to the World Bank (Chen, 2005). As a result, economic violence is a form of prejudice that is particularly harmful to women. Method: A systematic search was conducted with PRISMA guidelines. The search was completed by examining peer reviewed literature databases using PubMed, Research gate, Medline and identified potential studies for inclusion. Results: All participants in the mentioned studies have suffered from varying degrees of financial abuse and even people who have incomes access to their own income at their disposal. The women accounts included four kinds of economic abuse apperceived in current literature: such as Preventing the acquisition of economic resources, Preventing the use of resources, Reluctant to contribute, Exploiting women's resources and/or engendering economic costs; and two unique abuse, Exploiting women’s customary marriage gifts including Jahez/dahej, meher, wari and Jeopardising women's long-term finances, for example, through transnational investment. Conclusion: Comparing financial abuse to other forms of abuse, the researchers found that its size has grown. Aside from that, it has been discovered that the victims' behaviour continues to be affected even after rehabilitation.