The currency of power: Economic violence as the invisible chain

We are taught to recognise violence in the bruise, the broken bone, the shouted threat. But we are less adept at tracing its outlines in an empty purse, a stolen business profit, or the cold dread of an unpaid school fee. What does coercion look like when it is written in numbers, not scars? Economic violence is one of the most potent and insidious tools of control, a slow, methodical process that traps women in harm’s way as effectively as any locked door. Its weapon is not a fist but a financial statement, and its aim is not just to hurt but to own.

How does a tradition of male providership become a licence for theft?

This form of violence is often subtle, masquerading as tradition or male providership. A husband who confiscates his wife’s market earnings is not merely taking money. He is seizing her autonomy, her labour, and her claim to personhood. A father who denies his daughter an education is not simply saving on fees. He is strategically engineering her lifelong dependence, ensuring her world remains small and her options few. A community that systematically blocks women from land ownership is not just upholding custom. It is manufacturing their structural poverty, binding them to the goodwill of men who may or may not be kind. These are not isolated economic decisions. They are calculated acts of coercion designed to create a power imbalance so profound that escape becomes a mathematical impossibility.

What is the true price of a woman’s silence when the receipt is her child’s meal?

The consequences are brutally material. A woman without economic sovereignty cannot leave, even when her life is in danger. She must weigh the risk of a beating against the certainty of her children’s hunger. She cannot pay for a doctor to mend her wounds or for medicine to treat her sick child. She becomes a prisoner of calculated deprivation, where every coin is a link in the chain that binds her. This is not a byproduct of abuse. It is a primary mechanism of it. It operates on a simple, devastating equation: control the money, control the life. The violence is in the empty cupboard, the withdrawn schoolchild, the humiliating walk to a relative’s house to beg for soap. It is a violence that starves the spirit long before it touches the body.

Who benefits from a system that keeps a woman competent in the kitchen but incompetent at the bank?

This control is often justified as protection, framed as a man’s duty to manage affairs. But what is the difference between management and monopoly? The narrative of the male provider, when twisted, becomes a tool of disenfranchisement. It denies women financial literacy, labels their ambition as neglect of home, and frames economic control as a form of love. It creates a world where a woman can expertly manage a household budget for a man who doles out the notes, yet she is deemed incapable of opening a simple bank account in her own name. This is not a lack of skill. It is a deliberate architecture of incapacity, built to foster dependence.

Can a law against assault reach the hand that simply closes a bank account?

Confronting this reality forces us to expand our definition of justice and our understanding of intervention. What good is a protection order if the survivor has no money for transport to court, no funds to secure a safe room, no economic footing on which to rebuild? Ending gender-based violence is inextricably linked to the project of economic justice. It means fighting not just for laws against assault, but for laws and norms that guarantee a woman’s right to own, to inherit, to control her own income, and to access credit without a husband’s signature. It means scrutinising our own traditions—from inheritance practices to bride price—and asking a raw question: does this custom empower her, or does it price her?

What does survivor support look like when it must address both trauma and trade?

It means supporting programmes that do not just offer counselling, but also provide seed capital, financial literacy, and pathways to sustainable income. A shelter is not truly safe if it is only a pause between one state of destitution and another. True safety includes the tools for self-reliance. We must support women’s cooperatives, fund vocational training with market linkages, and champion policies that grant women formal title to the land they have farmed for generations. The goal is to move women from being economic pawns to becoming economic players in their own right.

Is financial independence a luxury for the secure, or a lifeline for the besieged?

Financial independence is not a secondary concern in the fight against GBV. It is a frontline defence. It is the key that can unlock the invisible chain. When a woman controls her own economic destiny, she regains the fundamental power of choice. It is the choice to stay or to leave, to speak or to remain silent, to live a life free from the constant calculus of fear and finance. This empowerment is not about creating wealth for its own sake. It is about creating territory. It is about building a space of selfhood that no one can confiscate.

Why do we celebrate women’s resilience in poverty but not fight for their power in the marketplace?

Our activism must, therefore, be as much about building economic power for women as it is about condemning physical violence, for the two are sides of the same coin. We must challenge the mindset that sees a woman’s economic activity as supplemental, while a man’s is foundational. We must call out economic control as the core violence it is, whether it happens in a modern apartment or a rural homestead. The tools may differ—a hidden bank statement versus confiscated crop proceeds—but the objective is identical: to make a woman too poor to leave.

Where does the revolution begin: in the courtroom or in the savings group?

It begins in both. It begins with policy that treats economic rights as human rights. It begins with men who are allies, who see shared financial management not as a loss of authority but as a foundation of a genuine partnership. It begins with communities that support women’s enterprises and challenge brothers who disinherit their sisters. It begins when we stop asking, “Why doesn’t she leave?” and start asking, “What has he done to make it impossible for her to stay?”

The chain is invisible, but it is not intangible. We can touch it in the ledger, the land title, the school fee receipt. To break it, we must be just as material, just as precise, and just as relentless. We must invest in women’s economic power not as charity, but as strategic justice. It is the most profound way to say: your life is your own. And we will help you build a foundation so solid that no one can ever take it from you again.