The existence or absence of employment is a key factor in falling into the pit that gender violence opens up for hundreds of thousands of Spaniards, but it can also be the instrument that allows us to get out of this scourge once and for all. It depends on the help they receive to break the vicious circle into which the binomial of violence and unemployment introduces them.
The humiliation, humiliation and attacks that many women endure at the hands of their partners or ex-partners stifle their chances of having a job. Unless the authorities provide the means to rescue them from this paralysis, they suffer gradual impoverishment and long-term unemployment that places them in social exclusion, precariousness and the underground economy. This is the main conclusion of a national study carried out with victims of this scourge by the Adecco Foundation.
The research reveals that seven out of ten abused women confess that it is the violence itself that disrupts their options for employment. Two-thirds explain that the lack of confidence and self-esteem to which fear, scorn and disqualification have led them undermine their security when fighting for a job. The other third, directly, has had to leave her job due to the pressures or demands of her partner, who over time discover that he seeks to subject her to greater isolation and increase her position of power with the economic key.
The problem, the study reveals, is that with this failure or quitting at work, a vicious circle begins that will be very difficult to abandon. The situation of unemployment and lack of own resources intensifies the victim’s vulnerability, as it reduces her independence, her self-esteem, but also her social life.
In fact, those responsible for the social observatory confirm that the isolation of the labor market turns the moment when the victim knocks on this door to escape from their abuser into an obstacle course. These women say that it has been very difficult, or outright impossible, for them to find a job. In most cases, due to the aforementioned insecurity and low self-esteem that they carry, but in 44% of cases also due to the fear that the job will make it easier for the fleeing aggressor to locate them, in a third due to the inability to comply schedules and taking care of their children, or for issues as basic as lacking technical means of searching or not knowing how to find a job in this digital world.
Virtually all of those who try to break up with their attacker have serious difficulties making ends meet.
The enormous difficulties in finding employment result in more than half of gender victims being long-term unemployed. 30% take between one and two years to find a job and a quarter remain without a job and with little hope of finding it more than two years later.
A vicious circle
The dynamic of persistent unemployment has dire direct consequences, as it leads the victims and their families to poverty and social exclusion. The abused women who try to break away from the aggressor and their world live in almost all economic hardship. 97.3% confess that they have difficulties making ends meet too often and in the case of seven out of ten these difficulties are many.
This is the reason why many, in fact two out of every three, are forced into the underground economy due to the inability to find legal employment, which guarantees them a contract, rights and Social Security contributions. They resort to irregular work, desperate, faced with the urgency of obtaining any type of income whatsoever.
The realization of the risk of falling into this vicious circle of abuse, unemployment and poverty leads the Adecco Foundation to demand that the authorities pay urgent attention to the employment problems of victims of gender violence, because it can be the fundamental instrument to get out of this scourge, but also the trap that traps them in social exclusion.
They consider it a priority to “accompany, advise and support” these women. They propose designing personalized employment itineraries for them aimed at emerging sectors, with psychological support to achieve their emotional recovery, and promoting labor flexibility so that employment is not incompatible with their family responsibilities.
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