Abuse
Domestic violence encompasses a constellation of controlling behaviors that include: actual or threatened physical harm; psychological abuse; forced sexual contact; economic control; social isolation, destruction of a victim’s property, keepsakes or personal possessions; abuse of animals/pets; misuse of divine beings and religious beliefs, practices, teachings, and traditions; and asserting male superiority and attributing abusive behavior to cultural traditions.
Child Sexual Abuse
A physical violation of a child’s body through any sort of sexual contact, or a psychological violation of a child’s personal space through verbal or visual sexual behavior. It also includes the sexual exploitation of a child by an adult or a child or teen who has a developmental advantage over the victim.
Domestic Violence
Domestic violence (also known as spouse abuse, partner violence, intimate partner violence, battering, and numerous other terms) is a pattern of assaultive and coercive behaviors adults or adolescents use against their intimate partners. It can occur in the context of dating, family or household relationships. Domestic violence is a learned systematic behavior that uses physical, sexual, and/or psychological abuse in order to exert and maintain power and control over an intimate partner. And it is against the law.
Economic Abuse
A pattern of mistreatment whereby one person exerts financial power and control over another, or uses economic means to frighten, intimidate, threaten, isolate, harass, humiliate, disempower, destabilize, or otherwise control another. This can include withholding or stealing money, abusing credit, controlling financial decisions, withholding financial information, sabotaging someone’s means of employment or income, creating financial dependence, and using class/status/economic power against the other person.
Emotional Abuse
A pattern of control whereby one person exerts power over another through verbal, psychological, or spiritual means, to frighten, intimidate, threaten, isolate, harass, berate, humiliate, disempower, or destabilize the other person.