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Israel marks elimination of violence against women day
By Jonathan Lis
Tags: Israel news 

It was only after 32 years of marriage that Molly realized she had been the victim of ongoing financial abuse at the hands of her husband.

"Suddenly I realized that I never had money in my wallet, I was constantly borrowing food from the neighbors, the refrigerator was always empty, we didn't even have medicine at home, and I depended on other parents to take the children to their afternoon activities," she said.

What Molly (not her real name) had originally considered extreme stinginess on her husband's part had actually become "financial terror," in her words, as she learned three years ago when she attempted to withdraw money from a savings account at the bank.
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"It turned out that there hadn't been anything in the account for years," she told Haaretz yesterday. "Everything, all the salaries, savings, inheritances, amounts totaling millions of shekels, nothing was there. My husband had used sophisticated methods to empty all my bank accounts."

If anyone could be expected to be on top of her personal finances, it was Molly, an economist with an international reputation. But though she has a doctorate in economics, she had never taken part in managing the household funds, dedicating her time to her career and her three children.

Once she realized that she had been unknowingly suffering what has come to be termed a form of abuse, Molly founded Maka Metzaltzelet ("A Ringing Blow"), an organization aimed at raising public awareness about women whose husbands exert undue control over their money and providing support.

The group is assisting more than 400 women, and operates a support group and hotline. It is also working to change Israeli laws to help protect women. Using the name Dr. Molly, she also writes a blog that she hopes will get more women to seek help.

Beatings by bankbook

While Molly was attending international economic conferences, teaching as a tenured lecturer at one university and carrying out research at another, her husband - an executive with a key position at one of Israel's largest high-tech companies - dealt with the family finances.

"My career was important to me," she said. "I wanted to be world-famous. I attended conferences all over. I devoted my life to my career and my children."

The main obstacle in understanding that her husband was abusing her financially was that nothing else in their lives seemed amiss.

"I did not ever suffer from any physical violence," said Molly. "Like me, many other women have suffered financial abuse. The problem is that all the experts claim that financial violence is always accompanied by other types of violence; this confused me and prevented me from understanding my situation."

"We are a very well-off family," she said. "The two of us earn high salaries. There is no reason for my husband's stingy behavior. And still, he never allowed me to shop by myself, only with him. For years I thought this was an ordinary type of family outing. He always came with me to buy clothes and to the supermarket. Now I look at this in an entirely different way. I know that we bought only what he wanted. He said that he preferred one brand over another; today I see that he picked the cheapest products."

"He used very clever methods," she said. "I thought we were working together in money matters, yet I never really paid attention to what he was doing."

The situation worsened over the last few years.

"I finally challenged my husband," said Molly. "In response, he offered me a weekly allowance. At first he agreed to give me NIS 5, which he raised to 20 and finally to 200, for all the family's purchases. In order to deal with this, I was forced to ask for handouts."

Women who fall victim to "financial terror" suffer twice. The authorities do not recognize their economic plight, because in many cases the women prefer to continue living with their husbands and not take steps against them; aside from financial abuse, their lives run smoothly. Another problem is that if they do seek to take steps against their husbands, they discover that they cannot hire a lawyer or a private detective to investigate what has happened to their money, because their funds have "disappeared."

"If someone were to dare to take money from a business, he would be punished by law. But when this happens inside the family, the government offers no help," Molly said.

Recognizing the problem

If MK Orit Zuaretz (Kadima) has her way, that will change shortly.

Zuaretz has recently introduced a bill that, if passed, will bring about the first official state recognition of "financial violence" against women. The bill is expected to determine that such acts are criminal offenses.

The courts would then be able to impose penalties, and order offenders to reveal where the money has been hidden and compensate their spouses. At the same time, the women would be entitled to welfare from the National Insurance Institute, and regular guaranteed minimal income payments to recover from their difficult financial situations.

"Thousands of women suffer from financial violence every day, in a fashion which not only reduces the quality of their lives, but endangers their lives," Zuaretz said. "The phenomenon is on the increase in recent years, in light of the rise in the number of women in the work force. We are talking about a kind of violence characteristic of the middle and upper classes."

Zuaretz said that because of the current legal situation, in which financial violence is not recognized as a criminal offense, women who suffer from it cannot receive help from the government. Sometimes women continue to undergo financial abuse after getting divorced, she said.

"Severe financial violence doesn't just hurt women, but the entire society," Zuaretz said. "We are talking about an offense that takes place daily without official recourse to act against it."

Not just frugality

"Today, when I look back on my life and that of others in the organization, it is clear that the phenomenon grows worse over the years," Molly said.

"In the beginning, when you meet a man and marry him, you discover that [the problem] exists but it doesn't loom large. In the case of my husband, I called it being frugal - ongoing frugality. But even then I failed to understand why it was happening to me. We were a young couple, with the possibility of living a normal life. Slowly, over the years, the situation became one of extreme stinginess. When it was happening, I didn't see it, mostly because my career took most of my time, and I had to travel to conferences all over the world."

Molly said her husband is aware of the organization she has founded and of its activities against the financial abuse of women.

"At first, when I started it, he didn't know anything," she said. "Afterward he understood that something was happening and we spoke about it. But it has not brought about any changes in his behavior towards money. He began to tell me that I don't understand."

It is also hard for Molly's children and relatives to accept her claims.

"It is very difficult to explain a situation like this," she said. "The children and my relatives were there, after all, and saw nothing, for all those years."
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