Coerced Debt as Coercive Control: Women’s Experiences and Institutional Responses in the U.K.

Coerced debt is emerging as one of the most pervasive and harmful forms of economic abuse in intimate relationships, yet remains peripheral to public and scholarly debates about domestic abuse. This chapter examines how coerced debt operates as a mechanism of coercive control within the structural conditions of financialised economies. Drawing on qualitative data from the first academic study of coerced debt with U.K. victim-survivors, we demonstrate how coerced debt constrains women’s autonomy through unaffordable liabilities, punishes attempts at independence through escalating financial obligations, and forecloses future prospects by destroying credit needed for housing and essential services. These abusive functions evolve across the relationship life course and often continue post-separation, achieving devastating effectiveness when enabled by institutional structures that facilitate debt creation while obstructing remedy. Our analysis reveals how the economic insecurity generated by coerced debt creates physical insecurity: prolonging women’s exposure to gendered violence and increasing their vulnerability to future harm. We conclude by calling for a coordinated cross-sector response to coerced debt in the U.K., and outline priorities for future research.