Power by Other Means

Economic violence, the systematic restriction of access to economic resources, employment, property or decision-making, constitutes one of the most insidious yet concealed forms of gender-based violence (GBV). By undermining economic autonomy, it entrenches dependency, constrains choice, and limits the ability of affected persons, predominantly women, to exit abusive relationships. Its persistent marginalization within legal frameworks has contributed to delayed recognition and inadequate institutional responses.

This post advances the argument that economic violence against women (EVAW) must be recognized and addressed as a distinct human-rights violation rather than treated as an ancillary feature of domestic violence. Such recognition requires legal clarity, intersectional data collection, and structural policy responses. A particular focus is placed on Austria, where binding international obligations exist, but domestic implementation remains fragmented and incomplete.

Why Economic Violence Remains Difficult to Detect

Empirical data on EVAW remains limited and uneven. While EU-wide surveys confirm the prevalence of GBV, comparative overviews of domestic legal definitions show significant differences in how EU member states define and conceptualize forms of GBV, which in turn  constrains comparability and visibility. This reflects deeper normative uncertainty as to whether economic abuse is perceived as violence at all.

The problem is therefore legal as much as empirical. As one of the first legally binding instruments to explicitly name economic violence as a form of GBV, the Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention) includes economic harm within its definition of violence against women under Article 3. However, its interpretative materials subsume economic violence under psychological abuse. This conceptual compression weakens doctrinal precision and hampers the development of targeted indicators, prosecutorial strategies, and preventive measures. Where economic violence is not clearly articulated in law, it remains difficult to record, prosecute or remedy.

EVAW rarely manifests itself through one single act. Rather, it operates through patterns of conduct that progressively restrict autonomy. Established typologies identify three interrelated dimensions: economic control, economic exploitation and economic sabotage. Economic control refers to the regulation of access to shared or individual financial resources. Economic exploitation includes appropriating income or assets, accumulating debt in another person’s name, or disposing jointly owned property. Economic sabotage encompasses conduct aimed at preventing or undermining employment, education, or training, including interference with childcare or work-related resources.

Socio-legal research explains why such conduct is frequently overlooked. Financial disagreements are common in intimate relationships and often normalized. Postmus et al. (2018) note that victims may not fully recognize the cumulative impact of economic abuse while still in the relationship. Earlier work by Postmus et al. (2012) shows that economic abuse is widely misunderstood and often not associated with intimate partner violence. Corrie and McGuire (2013) argue that economic abuse is masked by structural economic insecurity and gendered norms around decision-making, blurring the line between coercion and everyday hardship. Gradual financial coercion may therefore appear indistinguishable from ordinary conflict, making abusive dynamics difficult to identify. Public attitudes reinforce this invisibility. In the Gender Equality Index 2025, 46% of men and 26% of women view financial control by male partners as acceptable, normalizing dependency and structural vulnerability.

Crucially, EVAW is not merely a consequence of other forms of abuse but a core component of coercive control. Research identifies four interlocking dynamics: economic precarity increases vulnerability to abuse; economic dependence hinders leaving abusive relationships; violence undermines women’s labor-market participation and long-term financial security, and abusive partners deliberately deploy economic strategies to reinforce domination. These dynamics situate EVAW at the center of gender-based power relations rather than at their margins.

Economic violence, while not exclusively experienced by women, predominantly constitutes EVAW as a manifestation of violence against women. It reflects gendered distribution of economic power and structural inequalities in legal, social and economic institutions.
By restricting access to resources, decision-making and economic security, it transforms dependency into a mechanism of control. An intersectional perspective shows that economic violence disproportionately affects women situated at the intersection of class, race, migration status, disability, age, sexual orientation and gender identity. Women exposed to multiple axes of disadvantage are subject to higher vulnerability. Framing EVAW through this lens prevents its reduction to interpersonal conflict and highlights it as a form of GBV rooted in discrimination and power asymmetries engaging state responsibility under international human rights law (IHRL), particularly within the instruments examined, such as the Convention on the Elimination on All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the European Convention on Human Rights and the Istanbul Convention.

Economic Violence in IHRL

The foundation for protecting women from violence is rooted in the universal principles of human rights and fundamental freedoms, first articulated in the Charter of the United Nations in 1945. The principles of equality and non-discrimination, anchored across all nine core human-rights treaties, further provide the normative baseline for addressing violence against women. A decisive shift began in 1989, when the CEDAW Committee clarified that the Convention, although not explicitly referencing violence, must be interpreted as requiring states to protect women from it. This catalyzed broader recognition in the early 1990s, including General Recommendation No. 19 (1992) and the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (1993). CEDAW has firmly established the legal relevance of economic violence in its General Recommendations. Building on General Recommendation No. 19, the Committee clarified that GBV constitutes a form of discrimination within the meaning of Article 1 of the Convention. General Recommendation No. 35 strengthened this approach by explicitly including economic harm within the scope of GBV. Therefore, states are under a duty of due diligence to prevent, investigate, punish, and provide reparation for economic violence, including by private actors.

The CEDAW Committee’s individual communications further operationalizes this framework. In A.T. v Hungary and V.K. v Bulgaria, economic abuse, including financial deprivation, housing insecurity, and enforced dependency, emerged as a decisive factor in preventing women from leaving violent relationships. Rather than a private monetary dispute, these decisions frame economic violence as a structural barrier to women’s rights to equality, security, and dignity.

At the EU level, protection against economic violence has emerged primarily through judicial interpretation. The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly held that non-physical forms of abuse, including economic deprivation and coercive control, may amount to violations of the European Convention on Human Rights. Case law (T.M. and C.M. v Moldova, Volodina v Russia, Tunikova and Others v Russia) has engaged, inter alia, the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment (Article 3), the right to respect for private and family life (Article 8), and the right to non-discrimination (Article 14).

The Court has held that states have positive due diligence obligations where authorities know or ought to know of a real risk of domestic violence. This standard is rooted in the so-called Osman test, developed in Osman v. United Kingdom. Under this test, state responsibility may arise where authorities knew or ought to have known of a real and immediate risk to the life of an identified individual and failed to take reasonable measures within their powers to avert that risk. While originally formulated outside the domestic violence context, the Osman test has been criticized for insufficiently capturing the cyclical, escalating, and often non-physical nature of domestic abuse, including economic control. The Grand Chamber’s judgment in Kurt v. Austria marked a significant clarification in this regard. Without lowering the threshold of the test, the Court emphasized that risk assessments under Articles 2 and 3 must be contextualized to the specific dynamics of domestic violence, including patterns of coercive control, material dependency, and other non-physical indicators of escalating risk. The Court’s jurisprudence implicitly recognizes economic violence through its evolving jurisprudence and its treatment of non-physical forms of domestic abuse. Where states fail to recognize or respond to economic coercion that contributes to foreseeable harm, Convention responsibility may be engaged.

The most explicit normative recognition of economic violence is found in the  so-called Istanbul Convention, the first binding international instrument to expressly include economic violence within its definition of violence against women. Article 3 defines violence as encompassing physical, sexual, psychological, and economic harm, while Article 5 establishes a clear due diligence obligation. The latter requires states to prevent, investigate, punish, and provide reparation for all types of violence, irrespective of whether it is committed by state or private actors.

Taken together, these instruments articulate a coherent international standard. EVAW is recognized as a form of GBV that undermines autonomy, entrenches inequality, and obstructs the effective exercise of human rights. Yet domestic implementation continues to lag behind.

Implementation Gaps: Austria as a Case in Point

Austria is bound by all three frameworks: CEDAW, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the Istanbul Convention. Yet the domestic legal treatment of EVAW remains incomplete, raising due diligence concerns under IHRL. In 2017, the Istanbul Convention’s monitoring mechanism GREVIO recommended that Austria adopt a comprehensive definition of domestic violence explicitly encompassing economic violence, a recommendation which remains unimplemented due to Austrian concerns regarding domestic framework rigidity. In its 2024 thematic evaluation, GREVIO again regretted Austria’s continued opposition to a universal definition in line with Article 3(b) of the Istanbul Convention and has repeatedly rejected this position as incompatible with Convention standards. Austrian Violence Protection Centres have also criticized this stance in reform proposals.

The National Action Plan on Violence against Women for 2025–2029 acknowledges structural challenges, including planned reviews, data collection, and the elaboration of legal definitions. However, EVAW remains largely absent from its conceptual framing, which continues to prioritize physical, sexual, and psychological harm. Without binding legal reforms, clear mandates for authorities, and adequate resource allocation, economic violence risks remaining formally recognized yet practically invisible. This gap has tangible consequences. Where economic abuse is not clearly defined in law, it is unlikely to be consistently identified by police, courts, or support services. Survivors remain exposed to prolonged dependency, while perpetrators retain means of control without triggering institutional intervention.

Regression Risks: Lessons from Latvia

In October 2025, Latvia’s parliament reportedly voted to initiate withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention, citing conflicts with national values and claiming domestic law provided sufficient protection. The decision has generated serious concern among international institutions and non-governmental organizations, as withdrawal weakens preventive frameworks, undermines accountability and risks normalizing regression from gender-sensitive legal standards. Where EVAW is already insufficiently conceptualized, such reversals threaten to erase hard-won normative gains, most notably the Istanbul Convention’s explicit recognition of economic violence.

What Effective Protection Requires

Placing EVAW at the center of GBV prevention requires legal reform. In Austria, this entails, at minimum, the adoption of clear and autonomous definitions of economic violence and systematic, intersectional data collection capturing its prevalence and cumulative effects. Equally essential is guaranteed access to material support for survivors, including emergency financial assistance.

What is not measured cannot be meaningfully addressed. Without reliable data, states cannot design targeted interventions, allocate resources effectively, or assess compliance with their international obligations. Effective protection further requires economic measures addressing housing, employment, childcare, and education, as well as reforms to labor and social-security law to reduce structural dependencies. Training for judicial and administrative actors is equally indispensable. These measures are not innovative. They reflect obligations already embedded in IHRL , such as CEDAW, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (as elaborated by its Committee, see CESCR, Concluding Observations: Benin, UN Doc. E/C,12/BEN/CO/2 (9 June 2008), para 14) and broader UN human rights practice, including the Human Rights Committee on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (see HRC, Concluding Observations: Cameroon, UN Doc. CCPR/C/CMR/CO/4 (4 August 2010), para 8) and the Committee against Torture (see CAT Committee, General Comment No. 2, UN Doc. CAT/C/GC/2 (24 January 2008), paras 22-24), which have read structural gender obligations into their respective treaties. Their persistent absence reflects failures of implementation rather than gaps in normative guidance. Economic independence is not a peripheral concern but a prerequisite for autonomy, safety, and the ability to leave abusive relationships. As long as economic violence remains conceptually blurred and legally marginalized, protection frameworks will remain incomplete.