Derry City and Strabane District Council is to write to the Executive urging action on economic abuse and coercive debt with an estimated one in six women in the North suffering such control over the past year.

SDLP Waterside Councillor Martin Reilly secured backing from Derry and Strabane District Council for stronger action to tackle economic abuse at the council’s monthly meeting for October.

Research by the charity Surviving Economic Abuse (SEA) has found that one in six women in experienced economic abuse in the last 12 months, yet awareness of the issue remains among the lowest across these islands.

Councillor Reilly said: “Economic abuse is not simply a financial problem. It is a form of domestic abuse that can control every aspect of a person’s life and prevent them from reaching safety.

“Too often, victim-survivors are left without access to their own money, burdened by debts accumulated by an abuser and facing significant financial obstacles when trying to leave an abusive situation. People in Northern Ireland deserve the same practical supports that are available elsewhere.”

Councillor Reilly’s highlighted the lack of dedicated support infrastructure in the North, where there is currently no equivalent emergency 'flee fund' for victim-survivors and limited specialist debt-advice capacity.

“That means access to emergency financial assistance, specialist debt advice and support to ensure that debts created through coercion and abuse do not continue to follow someone long after they have escaped.

“By supporting this motion, Council has sent a clear message that economic abuse must be recognised, that victim-survivors must be properly supported and that the barriers keeping people trapped in abusive relationships must be removed,” he said.