<\/p>\n
Huffpost Excerpt:<\/em><\/p>\n With a flight booked, Caitlin Eckert was ready to leave her abuser. But the morning she was set to go, she remembered they were still on the same phone plan.<\/p>\n The two had taken advantage of a deal earlier in their relationship \u2014 two new iPhones \u2014 which put them on a shared plan under his name. Not expecting her relationship to turn abusive (because who would?), this understandably caused her little hesitation at the time. But now she felt terrified. What if, out of spite, he disconnected and erased her phone number, the one she\u2019d used for 15 years as a young professional, friend and family member?<\/p>\n She called customer service and tried to explain her situation calmly. But no matter what she said, the response from the other end was the same: Her abuser would have to make the call or show up to the store to take her off the plan.<\/p>\n \u201cAt one point, I broke down and asked the stranger on the other line, \u2018What do I do?\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cWhich, looking back, I realize was both in terms of the cell phone plan and the abuse I was experiencing.\u201d<\/p>\n Unwilling to accept the options provided, Eckert went to the store in person. Her flight was in a few hours, but she knew this needed to be squared away. At the store, three men greeted her. They asked if she was the main account holder; she said she wasn\u2019t. \u201cImmediately, they threw their hands up and told me that there was nothing they could do,\u201d<\/strong> she said. \u201cI remember feeling an immediate wave of defeat rush over me, as I knew that in order to emancipate myself from my abuser, I would need his active participation in the process.\u201d<\/p>\n Are all phone companies like this? The short answer: It depends. \u201cCell phone providers have different laws and regulations dependent on the state,\u201d said Blair Dorosh-Walther, program manager of economic empowerment at Safe Horizon<\/strong>, a victim assistance organization. \u201cUnfortunately, most states do not have supportive domestic violence protections.\u201d<\/p>\n Many others have confronted this predicament. In one Twitter thread, people talked about facing or learning about this issue with Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile, the country\u2019s three biggest carriers<\/strong>. The hoops to jump through are never-ending, even for survivors who are able to go through the process required by their carrier. A Verizon Support representative replied to the Twitter thread, saying \u201cI assure you that any domestic violence victim that receives an order from a court to assume responsibility of their wireless number, can do so without requiring authorization from the current account owner or manager.\u201d In response to questions from HuffPost, the company claimed, \u201cWe work very closely with survivors to make sure they can get any documentation we request, and we make sure we don\u2019t put anyone at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n T-Mobile said, in part, \u201cT-Mobile supports the Safe Connections Act that would make [being able to sever a phone line without the consent of an abuser] a consistent federal policy. We also support domestic violence survivors where they need assistance with device ownership and service costs.\u201d Neither carrier said policies requiring survivors to produce court orders or other documentation have been eliminated, and AT&T did not answer questions about their policies.<\/p>\n But going to court, let alone getting a court order<\/strong>, is incredibly hard and a major barrier for survivors. The time, money, evidence and resources needed can simply be too much, making laws that are supposedly \u201chelpful\u201d far from it.<\/p>\n \u201cOften, laws supporting domestic violence survivors end up creating far more work for the survivor than the person causing harm, which may be additionally traumatizing,\u201d Dorosh-Walther added. \u201cCell phone contracts are no different.\u201d<\/p>\n Let\u2019s start with what\u2019s currently happening in terms of legislation. In July, the House of Representatives passed The Safe Connections Act<\/a>, after a companion bill had already been passed in the Senate. It gives survivors the ability to remove themselves from a family phone plan without problems or fees, but has yet to be made law.<\/p>\n So what can someone in this situation do in the meantime? First and foremost, safety planning. \u201cSafety planning is essential, not only for contract bifurcation, but [for] any step a survivor takes away from the person causing them harm towards physical and financial safety,\u201d Dorosh-Walther said.<\/p>\n Read the full article here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Safe Horizon’s Blair Dorosh-Walther, program manager of economic empowerment , describes how cell phone providers differ in laws and regulations throughout the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":{"id":9685,"alt_text":"Support children and families in domestic violence shelters","caption":"Peggy Duffy Memorial fund","description":"Support children and families in domestic violence shelters","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":512,"height":512,"file":"2022\/07\/Safe-Horizon-Flower-Logo_TransparentThumbnail.png","filesize":31715,"sizes":{"medium":{"file":"Safe-Horizon-Flower-Logo_TransparentThumbnail-300x300.png","width":300,"height":300,"mime-type":"image\/png","filesize":18595,"source_url":"https:\/\/www.safehorizon.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Safe-Horizon-Flower-Logo_TransparentThumbnail-300x300.png"},"thumbnail":{"file":"Safe-Horizon-Flower-Logo_TransparentThumbnail-150x150.png","width":150,"height":150,"mime-type":"image\/png","filesize":8008,"source_url":"https:\/\/www.safehorizon.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Safe-Horizon-Flower-Logo_TransparentThumbnail-150x150.png"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","keywords":[]}},"post":9684,"source_url":"https:\/\/www.safehorizon.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Safe-Horizon-Flower-Logo_TransparentThumbnail.png"},"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[661,320,92],"class_list":["post-9790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-safe-horizon-in-the-news","tag-cellphones","tag-domestic-abuse","tag-domestic-violence","issue-domestic-violence"],"acf":{"page_header_title":"","title_font_size":"42","page_header_excerpt":"","sub-headline_placement":false,"page_header_image":false,"custom_scripts":false,"show_author_bio":false,"related_initiative_title":"Do you need help?","related_initiative_link":"https:\/\/www.safehorizon.org\/emergency","related_initiative_link_text":"Visit our Emergency Page with Current Services","featured_posts":[{"ID":9391,"post_author":"13","post_date":"2021-11-26 14:16:32","post_date_gmt":"2021-11-26 19:16:32","post_content":"Teen Vogue<\/em>\r\nBy Ashley Belanger<\/em>\r\nNovember 26, 2021<\/em>\r\n\r\nExcerpt:\r\n<\/em>\r\n\r\nFinancial\u00a0abuse<\/a>\u00a0is violence. That\u2019s what\u00a0Maid,<\/em>\u00a0on track to become the most-watched\u00a0Netflix<\/a>\u00a0mini-series of all time, vividly showed over 10 episodes released last month, effectively raising awareness for this misunderstood form of domestic violence. Netflix projected that within four weeks, more than\u00a067 million people<\/a>\u00a0watched\u00a0Maid<\/em>\u2019s hero Alex struggle to break free from her partner Sean, the financially controlling and emotionally abusive father of her daughter Maddy.\r\n\r\nOf the many viewers who sympathized with Alex, some were moved to act.\u00a0Maid<\/em>\u00a0author Stephanie Land\u00a0tweeted<\/a>: \u201cI have heard from a few people that folks are donating to DV shelters in honor of #MAIDNetflix and this is the most beautiful thing. Thank you all so much.\u201d Even\u00a0Maid<\/em>\u00a0star Andie MacDowell, who plays Alex\u2019s unreliable mom, told Land she had a friend inspired to make a donation after viewing.\r\n\r\nThis sudden outpouring of donations came at a most urgent moment.\r\n\r\nThe financial abuse that Alex suffered \u2013 income barriers like when her abuser cuts off her phone, prevents her from working, or takes away her transportation \u2013 was one of the most increased forms of\u00a0pandemic-related domestic abuse<\/a>\u00a0reported, according to a representative from the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Reports show abusers nationwide going to new extremes to exert control by\u00a0limiting<\/a>\u00a0Wi-Fi access,\u00a0lying<\/a>\u00a0about pandemic risks, and\u00a0intercepting<\/a>\u00a0stimulus checks.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere's so many things that abusers come up with as ways to control you,\u201d Land tells\u00a0Teen Vogue<\/em>, and financial abuse is key to isolating victims.\r\n\r\nCommon forms of financial abuse<\/a>\u00a0include taking money without permission, controlling bank accounts, running up debt, credit card fraud, hiding assets, and preventing someone from making money or money-related decisions. Surveys show\u00a0nearly all domestic violence survivors experience financial abuse<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0top reason that survivors stay with abusers is because they cannot afford to leave<\/a>.\r\n\r\nIn\u00a0Maid<\/em>, we watch Alex dodge Sean\u2019s explosive outbursts and malicious cut-downs while her friends and family deny the validity of her abuse and the direness of her finances. \u201cIt's not just about financial control, but it's wearing this person down,\u201d Land says. As Alex discovers, the only real solution to the financial abuse she experienced was a stable income source, which allowed her the freedom to access child care, safe housing, transportation, and independence from her abuser.\r\n\r\nAs the show portrayed, organizations meant to help survivors aren\u2019t always enough. In January, the\u00a0Journal of Family Violence<\/em>\u00a0published results<\/a>\u00a0of a National Alliance for Safe Housing survey of 800 pandemic domestic violence service providers. The authors identified\u00a0guaranteed income<\/a>\u00a0as the most promising way the United States could have financially supported survivors through the pandemic\u2019s double whammy: a dramatic\u00a0spike<\/a>\u00a0in domestic violence and a quick erosion of typical survivor safety nets.\r\n\r\nAttempting to support as many Americans as possible through the economic shock, the federal government provided\u00a0stimulus checks<\/a>, as well as emergency funding to community domestic violence organizations\u00a0through the CARES Act<\/a>, but the\u00a0Journal of Family Violence<\/em>\u00a0report showed that organizations still struggled to meet survivors\u2019 basic needs.\r\n\r\nFor Rimsha \u2013 a domestic violence survivor of emotional, physical, and financial abuse who requested her surname and location be concealed for her protection \u2013 she already had a restraining order against her abuser in place when the pandemic started. That didn\u2019t stop him from filing her and their children as dependents on his income taxes, and then intercepting her stimulus checks from the Internal Revenue Service.\r\n\r\nRimsha has been working with the nonprofit Safe Horizon to contest ongoing identity theft, the last bastion of her abuse.\r\n\r\nWhile she feels she\u2019s healing from the emotional and physical abuse, it\u2019s the financial abuse she still can\u2019t quite escape, because like most financial institutions, she says the IRS lacks protocols to support domestic violence survivors. Throughout the pandemic, as she\u2019s served as primary caregiver for her special-needs son, it\u2019s been particularly hard to lose out on emergency financial supports like the\u00a0child tax credit,<\/a>\u00a0which was designed to reduce child poverty and serve as a monthly form of guaranteed income for all struggling families.\r\n\r\n\u201cI went through hell,\u201d Rimsha says. \u201cThe person who put me through hell is enjoying the payments.\u201d\r\n\r\nDespite contesting the identity theft since 2019, if Rimsha can\u2019t resolve her stimulus check issue with the IRS by January 2022, she will miss the cut-off for distribution and will never see her payments. She\u2019s not optimistic, and she isn\u2019t the only survivor whose stimulus check got snatched.\r\n\r\nThe national non-profit organization FreeFrom, based in Los Angeles, provided direct-cash assistance in\u00a0grants up to $250<\/a>\u00a0to 7,200 survivors in every state and Puerto Rico through the pandemic. They surveyed more than 1,000 grantees on their COVID-19-related setbacks, and heard that stimulus check theft, fewer financial resources, and slowed court proceedings that delayed income from child support were all\u00a0commonly experienced<\/a>\u00a0pandemic impacts that financially drained survivors.\r\n\r\nHealth policy expert Naomi Zewde has a vision to help all survivors financially recover from pandemic financial abuse.\r\n\r\nIn May, she coauthored a bold policy proposal to abolish poverty through The New School\u2019s Institute on Race and Political Economy. In\u00a0\u201cA Guaranteed Income for the 21st Century,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0it\u2019s outlined how the federal government could use a progressive tax code to increase taxes on the rich and guarantee income for everyone who earns less than the national median household income (between $50,000 for single-adult households and $70,000 for two-adult households).\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s designed to lift everyone above the\u00a0poverty line<\/a>\u00a0for what\u2019s estimated to be half the cost of similar policy proposals, by directing funds only to the poorest households in America, including the\u00a0one in four women-headed households who live in poverty<\/a>. Under the policy, impoverished survivors would qualify for up to $12,500 in annual income, and an additional $4,500 per child. By providing\u00a0stable income<\/a>, Zewde believes the policy proposal shows how the U.S. could build a functioning safety net for domestic violence survivors, fortifying the fragile web of pre-existing services that the pandemic proved were inadequate to meet basic needs. And that safety net would be there for every American.\r\n\r\n\u201cEveryone would have access to assets,\u201d Zewde says. \u201cWhether or not we're in a pandemic situation, everyone just has like a financial foundation that they can fall on.\u201d\r\n\r\nZewde says this foundation would cover basic necessities as needed, but could also provide funds that anyone who\u2019s poverty-stricken can use \u201cto build themselves up and to make moves in the world and to make choices and to live out their dreams.\u201d\r\n\r\nIn\u00a0Maid<\/em>, Alex attempts to leave her abuser, but his financial abuse keeps her snared. At an especially dire point, she is symbolically shown at the bottom of a pit, her eyes devoid of fight. By the end of the mini-series, she\u2019s worked her way out, methodically plotted her escape and reached new heights in life, literally climbing a mountain with her daughter Maddy. In fiction as in reality, it takes Alex setting up stable income sources to adequately plan for the future and end her financial insecurity.\r\n\r\nThat happy ending remains a fantasy for many survivors.\r\n\r\nFor survivors of the most extreme forms of pandemic financial abuse, like Rimsha, getting out of that pit will require more than grit and extra maid shifts. It will require systemic changes where government agencies and financial institutions acknowledge the pervasiveness of financial abuse. FreeFrom reports the average financial abuse survivor\u00a0loses more than $20,000 in income and accrues nearly $16,000 in coerced debt annually<\/a>.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe worst thing in the world is when you want to get out and you cannot get out, because you don't have money,\u201d Rimsha says, adding she feels uncertain of any proposed guaranteed income disbursed through the tax code after her struggle with the IRS.\r\n\r\nZewde agrees with Rimsha that any guaranteed income disbursed by the IRS would only benefit the survivor if they filed taxes on their own, but that once they do file as individuals, they would at least know that money was coming.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe idea of some type of guaranteed income, obviously, is important and necessary and needed,\u201d says Blair Dorosh-Walther, Safe Horizon program manager for economic empowerment and shelters<\/strong>. \u201cBut it doesn't help if survivors don't actually get it.\u201d\r\n\r\nTo better protect survivors, Dorosh-Walther recommends in part establishing an advisory committee to consult with government agencies and create pathways to resolve common survivor issues.\r\n\r\nRead the original article here.<\/a>","post_title":"The Financial Abuse Shown in Netflix's Maid Is a Growing Problem Offscreen","post_excerpt":"Netflix's \"Maid\" depicts financial abuse, which is one form of domestic violence. Safe Horizon's Blair Dorosh-Walther discusses how we help.","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"the-financial-abuse-shown-in-netflixs-maid-is-a-growing-problem-offscreen","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-02-26 15:15:13","post_modified_gmt":"2024-02-26 20:15:13","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/www.safehorizon.org\/?p=9391","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"original_url":""},"yoast_head":"\n
\nBy Ashley Broadwater
\nAugust 30, 2022<\/em><\/p>\nThis is a far-reaching issue.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
So what can be done?<\/strong><\/h3>\n