Economic empowerment for families suffering from domestic violence

The Beit Noam Economic Empowerment project was born of the in-depth acquaintance with the phenomenon of domestic violence and its implications for the economic state of women.

Financial abuse:

Financial abuse is one of the more common forms of family violence; it is an integral part of the abusive behavior engaged in by violent men toward their spouses.

Of the known types of domestic abuse―physical, sexual, verbal, and emotional―financial abuse is underestimated in its effects. There are no legal prohibitions against this type of violence, nor is it treated in the usual programs provided by the state. The emotional and physical outcome of financial abuse is severe for the woman as well as for the rest of her family, and can thrust the family into economic distress and even destitution.

How does financial abuse manifest itself?

Financial abuse can be engaged in both by the abusive man preventing his wife from seeking and obtaining employment, or by taking control over the woman’s resources even if she works and earns a salary. In addition, the man often prevents the woman from making decisions concerning her life and her children. In fact, its meaning is total domination of the abusive man over the woman’s life, both at home and in the public sphere.

How is financial abuse made possible?

The economic sphere is tightly linked to patriarchy. The environment that makes financial abuse possible is the stereotypical image of women as mentally inferior, easy-spending robots, unable to reach rational decisions or manage a household budget.

What are the consequences of financial abuse?

By engaging in financial abuse, violent men achieve full control of the woman’s life both inside the house and out, thereby placing the woman at full dependency and helplessness – a position that serves the cause of maintaining the abusive pattern.

The Beit Noam program treats financial abuse.

The Beit Noam residential center provides a psycho-educational program for abusive men, who are referred to the hostel by court order. Our therapeutic program identifies and treats the causes of financial abuse behavioral patterns. Among the issues treated are:

• Tracing the sources of the abusive behavioral pattern
• Understanding the link between control <> loss anxieties and engaging in financial abuse
• Understanding what it means to maintain control of all financial resources, aimed at creating dependency and helplessness on the part of the woman
• Subsequently understanding that such control, being unrealistic, raises the level of frustration and therefore increases and promotes violent behavior, creating an endless loop

The Beit Noam treatment:

• One weekly two-hour group therapy session
• One hour of individual therapy every week for four months

Practical aspects of the therapy:

Being a residential facility allows the Beit Noam therapists the opportunity to observe the residents at all times. It also enables the staff to design hostel life in such a way as to allow the residents to experience daily conflicts similar to those they have at home with their families. The daily hostel routine includes:

• Sharing the responsibility of maintaining the household
  The men reside at Beit Noam for four months, during which they run the hostel as a home should be run, including cleaning, shopping, cooking, and chores.

• The residents manage their common financial resources. Each week, the Duty Resident collects money from all the residents to cover food and other household expenses.
• In his capacity as Duty Resident each resident receives individual coaching and guidance on how to use and prioritize his resources while he is responsible for the Beit Noam household budget. The coaching is provided by professional finance experts on a volunteer basis.
• All Beit Noam residents pay a monthly fee for their treatment

The therapeutic sessions include acknowledging the withholding of money as a controlling tool and a tool for hurting others. The Beit Noam treatment emphasizes the way the men perceive the “other”, i.e., other group members, as objects to exploit for their personal and concrete needs, as they do with their wives.

Consciousness raising:

The men gather in one-hour group sessions devoted to developing their self-awareness, which aids in the process of transforming their strict gender-role perceptions and aims at a long-term transformation to:

• Raising their awareness of their individual and personal reasons for engaging in financial abuse
• Raising their awareness of stereotypes as the basis for engaging in financial abuse

Learning and skills:

Many of the men treated at Beit Noam come from distressed socio-economic backgrounds. Most of them have difficulty coping with managing the family budget, due to failure to rationally set economic priorities. Subsequently, they may lead their family into poverty.

This part of the treatment is aimed at increasing residents’ capacity to wisely and equitably manage their ongoing family budget, together with their partners.

Economic empowerment for women who suffer abuse:

The starting point for these women is a sense of dependency and helplessness, leading to poor ability to manage their financial life in a way that will get them out of the poverty cycle. However, empowering them is possible only after the desire for independence emerges, when they are treated. While the treatment process itself is not therapeutic, the women are guided through it by the therapeutic team of the Beer Sheva Regional Center for Treatment of Domestic Violence.

700 women are treated annually in the Beer Sheva Center for Domestic Violence, of which we form three groups for women that desire and are eligible for economic empowerment training. Among the subjects we teach:

· Assertive behavior

· My rights

· Women and money from cultural, ethnic, gender, and traditional aspects

· Negotiating skills

· Bank account and household budget management

· Entrepreneurship – how to earn my living doing what I do best

· Self-image

· Working world basic codes

· Job-seeking, including writing my resumè and job interview skills

· Problem-solving

· Marketing myself and my product / service

The economic empowerment program is open to women in the south of Israel, at the Beer Sheva center, by the Beit Noam resource center.