How a secret ‘Freedom Fund’ can help women escape financial abuse

One in eight South African women over 18 has experienced financial abuse, according to a November 2025 Human Sciences Research Council national survey on violence against women. For many victims, experts say, financial freedom can mean simply having the means to leave an abusive relationship.

What the numbers show

The HSRC survey found that one in eight South African women had experienced financial abuse, and that more than half reported controlling behaviours in a relationship. Those figures, specialists warn, can mask the reality that financial control often sits behind other forms of coercion and harm.

Why planning matters

“Woman are often harmed and even killed for trying to end a relationship with an abuser. For this reason, careful planning is essential, and your exit plan must include your finances,” says Simon Dippenaar, founder of law firm Simon Dippenaar & Associates.

Khensani Nobanda, group executive for marketing and corporate affairs at Nedbank, says financial abuse removes a person’s agency.

“A woman whose salary is controlled by an abusive partner isn’t financially free. Someone prevented from working isn’t financially free. Someone forced into debt, denied access to their own bank account or financially monitored every day isn’t financially free,”

Nobanda adds that financial freedom is agency, explaining:

“It’s waking up every day knowing that you, not somebody else, controls your financial decisions.”

The ‘Freedom Fund’ idea

Hayley Parry, head of education at Worth, recommends two pillars of autonomy: a traditional emergency fund and a separate personal “Freedom Fund”. She advises that the Freedom Fund be kept private:

“The Freedom Fund is essentially an emergency fund that nobody knows about except for you,”

and should exist as a financial escape route if needed.

Parry describes the fund as a safety net and suggests it could be built privately or collectively.

“I have also given talks where I have spoken about how this is something that can be done within a sisterhood,”

she says, noting such arrangements could work similarly to a stokvel.

Practical steps experts recommend

• Build a private emergency or Freedom Fund to cover living expenses if you need to leave.
• Keep the fund confidential so correspondence or monitoring cannot reveal it.
• Open accounts in your own name and, where possible, with a bank different from your partner’s.

Dippenaar advises that financially abused women should open a new account with a bank that isn’t the same as their partner’s and, where possible, go into the bank to speak to an adviser to avoid correspondence being sent to the home.

“Bank personnel have dealt with similar situations and know how to help,”

he says.

How financial footprints can mislead

Nedbank chief risk officer David Crewe-Brown says financial abuse often creates a record that can be mistaken for poor financial behaviour.

“Someone experiencing coercive control may suddenly miss repayments. They may accumulate debt they never chose to incur. Their income may become irregular because they’ve been prevented from working,”

he explains.

Crewe-Brown warns that traditional credit-risk models may interpret these signs as higher risk, when in fact they may indicate financial abuse.

“Some customers aren’t making free financial decisions, they’re making constrained decisions,”

he says, adding that

“Financial data tells us what happened, but it doesn’t always tell us why.”

Where this leads

Experts stress early, strategic financial planning so resources are available if leaving becomes necessary. As Dippenaar notes:

“If you do not have your own resources, the effectiveness of your financial planning will make the difference between surviving on your own and crawling back for economic security,”

underscoring the stakes for many women facing financial abuse.