The EASE Design Challenge report synthesizes key learnings, insights, and limitations from an initiative designed to engage students and professionals in developing innovative responses to technology-facilitated financial abuse. It highlights the persistent barriers survivors face when seeking support from financial institutions, underscoring critical gaps in current systems. In response, the Design Challenge aimed to catalyze survivor-centred, coordinated solutions that can identify and interrupt abuse, enable secure and autonomous account access, and provide clear, trauma-informed pathways for addressing coerced or fraudulent debt.
Learn more about the EASE – Economic Abuse Support & Empowerment Project
Survivors use a range of strategies and supports to navigate and resist the impacts of financial abuse, working to regain safety, control, and financial independence.
These infographics are based on a WomanACT survey (103) and interviews (10) with women and gender-diverse people in Ontario with lived experience of intimate partner violence. They highlight the impacts and lived realities of financial abuse, as well as the barriers survivors face when seeking support. The insights also surface practical strategies and advice shared by participants for navigating and responding to financial abuse.
Learn more about the EASE – Economic Abuse Support & Empowerment Project
Disclaimer: If you are in immediate danger or fear for your safety, please call 911 or your local emergency services immediately. Your safety is the top priority.
Financial abuse is often unseen. However, survivors say that its impact on their lives can be extreme.
These infographics are based on a WomanACT survey (103) and interviews (10) with women and gender-diverse people in Ontario with lived experience of intimate partner violence. They highlight the impacts and lived realities of financial abuse, as well as the barriers survivors face when seeking support. The insights also surface practical strategies and advice shared by participants for navigating and responding to financial abuse.
Learn more about the EASE – Economic Abuse Support & Empowerment Project
Disclaimer: If you are in immediate danger or fear for your safety, please call 911 or your local emergency services immediately. Your safety is the top priority.
Survivors describe financial abuse as ongoing control over their finances, where access to money, decision-making, and independence are restricted.
These infographics are based on a WomanACT survey (103) and interviews (10) with women and gender-diverse people in Ontario with lived experience of intimate partner violence. They highlight the impacts and lived realities of financial abuse, as well as the barriers survivors face when seeking support. The insights also surface practical strategies and advice shared by participants for navigating and responding to financial abuse.
Learn more about the EASE – Economic Abuse Support & Empowerment Project
Disclaimer: If you are in immediate danger or fear for your safety, please call 911 or your local emergency services immediately. Your safety is the top priority.
Financial systems are not neutral, they are embedded in broader social and gendered contexts and are shaped by them.
Being gender-inclusive in financial tech (fintech) design inherently requires a trauma-informed lens. Fintech tools are often designed from a gender-neutral perspective, which assumes all users have similar needs, risks, and relationships to money. This approach overlooks how financial control and coercion are gendered.
This factsheet outlines the principles of the trauma-informed approach, their definitions and examples of their application to financial technologies.
This brief present three key principles to guide the development of effective responses to technology-facilitated financial abuse in the context of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). Identified through literature from Canada, the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom and grounded in consultations with survivors.
Service providers are incorporating these principles when designing solutions and practices to better support survivors, reduce harm, and prevent the misuse of financial technology. The brief outlines case studies of emerging, innovative practices that reflect these principles, aiming to enhance survivor safety, promote trauma-informed interventions, and raise awareness of this growing form of abuse.
The term innovative practices is used intentionally rather than “promising” or “best practices,” as these initiatives are still relatively new and require further evaluation to fully understand their effectiveness and long-term impact.
This brief offers a summary of some of the key challenges East Asian women face in Canada, including racism, gendered violence, and economic exclusion. These challenges were specifically targeted at people associated with the diverse cultures of China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, which are often called East Asia.
While this brief focuses on ongoing barriers, it also honours the powerful ways East Asian women have resisted, redefined, and reclaimed their place in Canadian society.
We recognize that East Asian women in Canada are leaders, entrepreneurs, artists, and caregivers. Many are business owners and community advocates, creating support networks and spaces of care for others. They carry forward rich cultural traditions and strong family and community values, despite a long history of discrimination aimed at erasing or devaluing these contributions.
This Asian Heritage Month, we release our latest issue brief with heavy hearts, following the devastating tragedy that occurred on April 27, 2025, during the Lapu Lapu Festival Day in Vancouver, BC. What should have been a joyful celebration of Filipino heritage and resistance was tainted by a horrific attack that took the lives of 11 people and injured many more. We extend our deepest condolences to the victims, their families, and the entire Southeast Asian community affected that are grieving.
In the wake of this grief, we remain committed to honouring the lives, stories, and contributions of Southeast Asian women in Canada. Southeast Asia is a vast and diverse region encompassing Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. This brief is just a starting point in exploring the complex realities faced by women from these communities shaped by histories of colonization, displacement, and resilience.
Through this work, we uplift the voices and experiences of Southeast Asian women as leaders, artists, caregivers, and advocates, and we honour their enduring strength. In this issue, you’ll find Grace’s powerful story of migration and resistance, alongside many others who continue to shape and sustain vibrant communities in Canada.
We all deserve an Ontario government that is committed to ending gender-based violence.
Note: As of June 5th, 2025 Bill 173 has been re-tabled as Bill 55, Intimate Partner Violence Epidemic Act, 2025
Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is an epidemic in Ontario. We are at a crucial point in getting the Ontario government to pass Bill 173, Intimate Partner Violence Epidemic Act. Passing this Bill would formally recognize IPV as an epidemic in Ontario – acknowledging the widespread and lasting harm that IPV has on survivors, children, family members and communities in general.
The context of this epidemic is well documented and consistently shared by survivors and the organizations who support them (WomanACT, 2024). Given the extensive and lasting impacts on the health and wellbeing of communities, addressing violence as a public health issue is widely regarded as a best practice (World Health Organization, 2016).
We need your help!
WomanACT is launching a community mobilization campaign to amplify the voices of survivors and community members. This is your opportunity to let your Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) know how IPV has impacted you and your family or community.
Use our template to write your own letter or email to your local Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP). This is your chance to share your or your community’s experience of IPV and why addressing IPV is important to you.
Download the email instructions and template to send to your MPP today!
For more information, please contact: Aakanksha Mathur, Manager of Public Policy, Advocacy and Communications at amathur@womanact.ca
Read our endorsed resource package “The Current State of Intimate Partner Violence in Ontario”
Read our Written Submission for the Study on Intimate Partner Violence – Standing Committee on Justice Policy
Economic and financial abuse impacts every part of a survivor’s life, causing stress, anxiety, depression, and a loss of self-esteem. It often leads to poverty, housing instability, and limited career opportunities. The social impacts can include feeling isolated and becoming financially dependent on their partner/spouse. Legal and financial consequences include coerced debt and legal vulnerabilities.
This visual report outlines the social impacts of financial and economic abuse, and real-life examples of survivor experiences.