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.
Read the official news release from Women and Gender Equality Canada here.
The Community Wellness – Canadian MARAC Pilot (Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference) project is coordinating a multi-agency response to high-risk domestic violence cases.
The Canadian MARAC is a structured, multi-agency meeting that brings together community agencies to share information on high-risk domestic violence cases. Based on the risks and needs identified by the survivor and professionals around the table, a coordinated safety plan is developed that includes clear actions by community agencies to increase the survivor’s safety.
The Canadian MARAC is an adaptation of the MARAC model originally developed in Wales in 2003 and now implemented in more than 250 communities across the United Kingdom. The model has been shown to reduce repeat victimization, increase survivor safety, and strengthen connections to critical supports and services.
WomanACT has been piloting the Canadian adaptation of the MARAC model and is now expanding this work to scale the model both within Toronto and communities in Alberta.
This project has been funded through Women and Gender Equality Canada
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.
It can be difficult to know where to turn if you’re experiencing violence or concerned that someone else might be. This factsheet highlights crisis supports and safety planning resources for survivors of intimate partner violence.
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.
Join us at WomanACT’s Annual General Meeting! This year, our theme C-SAFE highlights the urgent need to address gender-based violence (GBV) not just within traditional sectors, but across all systems that shape safety, equity, and justice. The theme underscores that GBV is a cross-cutting issue—impacting workplaces, communities, education, healthcare, housing, technology, and beyond—and requires coordinated allyship and engagement at every level. This event will bring together experts to share their experiences, best practices, and insights on cross-sectoral collaboration.
COMING SOON: Panelist information
Refreshments and beverages will be served.
* Space is limited*
The Women’s Information for Safety and Empowerment in Trades project is designed to enhance workplace safety and gender equity for women entering skilled trades. The project aims to equip women entering employment in trades with information about their rights and resources for employees who experience sexual harassment while at work. It will also raise awareness to women’s experiences in trades and highlight practices that support safe and healthy work environments for women.
