A Silent Violence

Coercive control is a pattern of behaviour where an abuser works to humiliate, manipulate and diminish their partner’s sense of self-empowerment, with the goal of dominating and controlling them. It takes different forms, such as limiting a person’s access to their own finances, isolating them from family and friends, selecting their clothes, coercing them into sex, or tracking their whereabouts.

Coercive control is part of the epidemic of gender-based violence happening in secret across the country. Psychological abuse — the hallmark of coercive control — is the most common form of intimate-partner violence in Canada, according to Statistics Canada. Most people never report it to police, but with devastating consequences — coercive control is a strong predictor of femicide* in intimate-partner relationships. Studies show that coercive control in an abusive relationship escalates the risk of fatality by nine times, and cases involving coercive control are more likely to result in serious harm than cases involving discrete acts of physical violence.

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