#61 Felicity Guest – Transcript

Louis van der Merwe
Welcome to another episode of Financial Planners, South Africa, it’s so great to have a conversation in person. And I have the lovely Felicity guest with me in our office. And we get to have a conversation today about financial and economic abuse a term that might be confusing for a lot of people, it might bring up uncertainty. And so Felicity, I’d love for you to tackle financial and economic abuse. What does it actually mean?

Felicity Guest
Thank you for having me, Louis, it’s really great to be here. It’s a pattern of behaviors that instills fear and causes harm. In a nutshell,

Louis van der Merwe
that is such a nice and condensed way. And so that behavior that you’re talking about, would it would it be someone else’s behavior and the impact on on a victim? Or, you know, what are we who are the who are the role players in this financial and economic abuse?

Felicity Guest
Well, it takes a power imbalance between two people, normally, and that’s quite broad. So it could be elder abuse, it could be even your business partner. But globally, it’s focused on intimate partners. So that would be spouses. And most of the research is on heterosexual couples is not enough research on other cohorts. But so that’s that’s the majority of the data is on heterosexual relationships. So for the purpose of this conversation, in the majority, it affects women. And that is because historically, there is a power imbalance between men and women. And it still exists, we can’t ignore that. So you know, although we have legislation and the is a focus on gender equality, and addressing inequalities of the past that’s quite widely described, and to be interpreted. But if we look, they still have huge disparity between income and the genders and South Africa, as well as in relationships.

Louis van der Merwe
Felicity, it feels like we’re on this cusp, in the financial services world where we start talking about gender pay differences, and we start talking about, you know, even the emotional side of money, but yet very little has changed. If we look at some of the data. And before this conversation, we were talking about how it’s women specifically are suffering around maintenance payments, you know, is that a form of economic abuse, you know, someone not paying the maintenance? And, you know, how prevalent is it in South Africa,

Felicity Guest
I tend to describe it as financial abuse, because economic abuse is, speaks more to the behaviors, money could be the tool, but it speaks more to the behaviors, preventing somebody from going to work or coercing them from not working, having control of a joint bank account, you can see the power imbalance there. But post relationship and with our divorce statistics, and also the shift in nuclear families, most people don’t get married, you know, their children are born out of one cohabiting and also casual relationships. So, money becomes the most effective tool because there’s no physical contact. And also, it’s the most powerful to post relationship because you can control remotely. So why does it happen? One, I think it’s part of our socialization, of women being nurturers and carers and men being providers and protectors,

Louis van der Merwe
the hunters and gatherers

Felicity Guest
and how does that change, you know, post relationship when they still primarily in your control of the money, and then we if we look at the emotional side, so if relationships don’t end amicably, which the majority don’t, there’s going to be a leg of some kind of retribution. So that happens primarily through money and the research shows us that when that isn’t hasn’t had the right kind of impact that the abuser is hoping for. Then they use the children as well. So many into During become the tool post relationship, and that’s quite a, that’s not what I lose intended, because our Children’s Act became child focused. Whereas before when parents got divorced, it was good. I want the child now and you can have the child thing. And the experts in this is we’re going to look at the best interest of the child, the best interest of the child is to have a relationship with both parents. Equally, it doesn’t say equal time. And then we speak about, you know, historically, women are the caregivers. So who is the primary attachment parent, even in relationship, it is still the mother. So it’s almost like she will become the primary caregiver. And you can see your child with art, even if you don’t pay child support, although it speaks to part of being the responsibility, a child cannot be withheld from the other parent because of the lack of child support, which is correct that it’s not the child, the child should not be punished for the parents poor behavior. So that’s child focus and child centered. Now that is missing in the maintenance act, although it says in the best interest of the child as paramount, all of the legislation speaks to the person who is meant to provide, which in the majority is men in this country. And because our Constitution is a liberal, again, because of our past, you know, people did not have a trials. So our constitution was developed, that not a single person in this country will ever go through what citizens that before our constitution. So the right to legal representation, Justice has to be all avenues have to be exhausted. So you can see what that allows to happen in the maintenance court, because of the provisions. It’s a perfect playground for somebody who’s not wanting to pay child support. And it’s not because they don’t care about the child. It’s to punish the ex partner. Because for some strange reason, when you’re in relationship, you understand how much families cost you understand what children’s costs, when the relationship ends? How is that suddenly not remembered? Because then it’s, I can only give you 1000 Rand, and I’m not paying school fees, will you pay half school fees, but the other person is earning twice as much money as you are. And the courts allow this. lawyers do this up in the divorce agreements, 5050 co payments, and that doesn’t speak to equality, particularly financial equality or economic equality. Yeah. So you can start seeing how the impact is on the primary carer who in the majority is woman and the maintenance act, if it’s in the best interest of the child? How do they not understanding that this has a direct impact on the child’s well being? That’s financially but the child is witness. And the older children get they realize what’s they hear the conversations, their way of appearance going to court? So you have ordered this? Can you imagine a couple is just not spent a criminal trial and maintenance coat and the night rather than the Friday to pick up the child, the child witnesses interaction between the parents. So it’s very layered. And I think we need to really have more conversations about this to create the awareness because this is our future generation.

Louis van der Merwe
Felicity, you’re so passionate about this topic. And I know you’ve created a support group for for victims, survivors and people that are not getting their maintenance or suffer from economic and financial abuse, with the stem from what sparked that, that passion.

Felicity Guest
And I got divorced the first time in 1990 9990. I have had have two children from my first marriage. And I did not ask for st maintenance because I said I’m not spending the rest of my life in a maintenance court, trying to get money from a man who I know will not pay. I’ve seen my mother go through this. And then I got married again. And I had another three children. And one of my children is intellectually impaired to needs care for the rest of his life. And 11 years ago, I ended the marriage and here I went back into the system, but obviously a lot more way. This time I realized that when the impacts but I also became very aware of his behavior because once he blatantly say to me you left child out of the house and you’re going to pay for this any withheld money. And the reason that I took that action with my son is I had a no drug policy. And he transgress that. So other punished for it financially, he was helped many. And that was on the on the on the back of a fraudulent divorce.

Louis van der Merwe
So you really, you were a victim of financial and economic abuse, and you’ve worked through this, and you’ve also helped 1000s If I have it, right. of women, what is the type of support that that you have offered them?

Felicity Guest
Well, going through what I did, I became very aware that of the systemic problems, and to the lack of awareness and the lack of understanding, I didn’t get much support. So one day, after coming back from court, again, very disappointed, and that must have been adenoma, 20th appearance in court in a very short period of time, and wondered what other women would do. Because I was fortunate to have a pro burner attorney and advocate, who today is a judge. It felt when I think they were intrigued by my case, because of the four children divorce. But also I have a mentally challenged child and because of how vulnerable I was financially, I was a stay at home mom for 20 years, essentially. And I lifted marriage with nothing. So at the age of 50, what position was I really in to still be the primary caregiver and have an intellectually challenged child who’s like having 10 kids on his own, he used to come to work with me every day, when I was doing interior decorating, because I couldn’t leave him at home because of his behavior. So you can see the impact that would have on my work. And when I said to him, you’re not paying child support. I’m going to sit in the two youngest to you in Johannesburg, and you can look after him so I can start working property. He said, Well, I’ll put the intellectually challenged child in a home. And I’ll put the youngest son boarding school because how am I supposed to work. But he never had the same understanding towards me. So you have ordered these things. So I came back from court one day, and I thought, What are other women doing? Because I’m battling with an attorney and an advocate. And I need to offer some support to these women. Because I’ve learned a lot and I started a Facebook group in 2014. It took a year to get to just over 1000 members. But now we’re growing at almost 2000 a month, and I’m on 77,000. And that is indicative of how pervasive it is. And the interesting thing is that they most of them feel what they’ve been going through is abusive. But they didn’t have a narrative, one of the abuse that they experienced post relationship, the systemic abuse, and how unsupported they are by society, the people that work for the friends because that’s could you just stop talking, you acting like a victim, can you not get over yourself, can’t get a second job, go and find somebody who’s got money that can look off to you. The conversations are not helpful. It reinforces stereotyping and shame and guilt. Because then you just shut down you don’t want to talk about it. But here’s the thing. People want to stand on rooftops and shout about the impacts that it has not just financial, the emotional and psychological impact is immense. And that is not recognized. Some equated and some research even says the emotional and psychological impacts are as severe as any other domestic violence victim. emotional and financial abuse victims, effects depression, anxiety, headaches. In some cases, even post traumatic stress disorder.

Louis van der Merwe
You can it’s easy to think, oh, this abuse of this level of abuse abuse is not as bad as but you know, as physical abuse. But that’s not helpful thinking

Felicity Guest
but it’s talking about violence. How do we describe violence, language can be violent financial abuse and economic abuses equally as violent, silent and invisible, but equally as violent. I shared a victim story the other day on social media. And she herself says the physical scars I experienced in relationship will heal. But the emotional scars I carry will always be there and people don’t see them. I went to go and report because I have a protection order for economic abuse and it’s a miracle that I Got it. I have managed to get enforced once. But when I went to the police station, a captain said to me, I can’t see we see abuse. And I said, No, my protection order does not include physical abuse. She does not not going to open this case. As it can you see inside my head, can you see inside my body? Can you see my scars? Can you see how much pain I’ve been through? She was so dismissive. It really escalated before I could get them to implement it. How do we expect them to understand that, you know, sepsis, so busy, pertaining to gunshot wounds and all that kind of stuff, that this seems a soft form of abuse? No, it’s equally as violent, and the impacts and harmful. So when you ask me what is economic and financial abuse? If you we need to really start becoming a lot were aware of what is harm? What harm and listen to victims? I mean, if you have an employee and you have to most companies in this country, have a victim or victim survivor of economical financial abuse? Has anybody asked? How does it affect you? We tend to find that they feel victimized. Because how many times you have to take off work to go to court. And then you are ill because court has been postponed for the 12th time. You have creditors phoning you. You have the school threatening you

Louis van der Merwe
know this, these dominoes just follow expected to sharp

Felicity Guest
work tomorrow and be productive and happy. It impacts on company’s bottom lines. It absolutely does.

Louis van der Merwe
Can we talk a little bit about clients suffering from economic and financial abuse specifically in the financial services industry? So people listening to this podcast that might have a client sitting across them that maybe have not gone through a divorce or a breakup, but you suspect signs of coercive behavioral control? Or how does that show up for for people that haven’t gone through a breakup? Like what are the signs that we can look for as financial planners?

Felicity Guest
I think part of our curriculum should be coercive and controlling behavior. Because it exists in families. People don’t understand because from control, it happens, like we see it amongst our parents, and then we start doing it. So it’s happens in the workplace. And yours is work and personal, though in the financial services sector. So how would you recognize a view go to a client, it’s being aware of coercive and controlling behavior, but being very aware of people’s responses. So if you have a view aware of imbalance of power, for example, and you sitting with a couple, and you can see the one party’s physical response, or their hesitation in answering questions, whether they participating, if you understand because from control, and you understand that the different tools that are used, you might think, hang on this sucker put a power imbalance here, and that would immediately coercive and controlling baby and you can start looking out for that if one person tries to speak. No, no, no, you know, I’ve never discussed it with you or make all the decisions, that would be an indication excluded. So what are the provisions? So if you can see that you’d pick up pretty quickly with this full disclosure of income and investments. And that’s, that’s and then what do you do? Once you become aware of that? What do you do?

Louis van der Merwe
It’s very common for one party to want to hide assets or Oh, no, no, no, my spouse isn’t aware of that asset. There’s even a saying that you should be pulling in the non dominant financial spouse to answer questions first. Right? So it almost feels like we trained to navigate around this instead of addressing the issue and saying, hey, you know, this could be a form of economical financial abuse, sure, because

Felicity Guest
the abuser would be aware of what you’re doing. And they would then be possibly a lot more assertive. And that gives you an idea of what goes on in the relationship, not just financially. I think one victims just want to be acknowledged, because often they don’t even realize to what extent they’ve been abused. And we need to be very mindful that physical abuse generally only happens right at the end because The other forms of abuse don’t carry scars, as I said, so it’s very difficult to identify or to explain to somebody. And also, if there’s gaslighting, you know, am I really saying is that that bad. And then this will control they it’s very intentional. Abuse is not conducted by people out of control, it’s choice and they very much in control. When it becomes physical abuse, that’s when they start losing control, but also a measure of control, they will hit you initially in places where people can’t see it. And then there’s the shame and guilt. Because there is retribution. And if we just look at the economic imbalance of women in this country, but also globally, if it is happening, what are the options? The conscious get up and leave? If everybody had the financial resources, they would get up and leave? But most of most women can’t, most victims can’t. So they choose violence over poverty. Because where do they go with it? You in this country? You go to a shelter, and this you’ve got family and that shelter? So only three months? Then where do you go? You didn’t get a job, you don’t get up skilled during get the tools. So you go back to the perpetrator.

Louis van der Merwe
Wow, it’s such a powerful comparison that you saying you know, you, you don’t have options if you don’t have money that can support you. And so going through some of the international resources, you know, Michelle Hoskins training, they through the course, they help you to create a toolkit for people that you think might be suffering from economical financial abuse to help them kind of escape the abuser and that current relationship. How would you approach something like that? So let’s say you’re in a meeting, you suspect that someone could be could be a victim of, you know, this abuse? Maybe their their spouse is controlling all this spending, and they don’t have access to money? You would share this potential toolkit maybe during the meeting? Probably not during the meeting, normally, after the meeting. I mean, what are the what are the practicalities?

Felicity Guest
Well, I think that, yeah, and Michelle’s course due to that, you have to be very mindful that you don’t put the victim at more risk. And that’s, I think, if you’re not that experienced, you would avoid even going in because out of fear that you’re going to put your client at more risk. Yeah. I think that one is being like aware. And it would have to be incident dependent, you know, if there was an incident, then you could share about the benefits of healthy relationships where, you know, people talk about the money issues, but not to push it too far. I know that in Michelle’s course. And in some countries, they who are countries that are very well resourced, that can discreetly provide them with service providers or organizations that can assist them. Unfortunately, we don’t really have all of those resources in this country. So I have a few people who work in the sector like health, mental health practitioners, as well as business people who refer the clients to me so that I can have a discussion because I feel a lot more obviously, I can be a lot more open about it. So yeah, it would be you know, here are some resources, he has people that you can go and talk to us, you know, discreetly whether it’s afterwards. Once that discussion actually happens, and you establish that there is some kind of abuse happening, then we also have to be incredibly mindful, because the most dangerous period for somebody leaving an abusive relationship is when they leave, and for the first six months. The research also shows us and that femicide normally happens when they leave or within the first six months, and I think as is probably in the top four of the worst femicide figures in the world. So that’s when women are at risk, not just physically but financially because my anecdotal evidence shows that money is cut off immediately when you leave the relationship. So providing for the one having a strategy is critical. You know, simple things like start collecting important documents, start collecting things, food items, clothing, Leave it at a trusted family or friends house, check your car for tracking your devices, part of the case of controlling behavior, because if they can’t have you, nobody else can. But also if you leave, who are you going to tell? You know, there’s fear, because abuse thrives in secrecy, the moment it’s exposed you also because then there’s retaliation. You know, we often hear people go, I would never have believed that he was at a piece of he was always so nice to me, his colleagues was so intentional. So it’s very difficult for the victim to get proper support. He’s the crazy one, you know. And so having a strategy and exit strategy, and it is, you know, having some provisions putting some money away. So it’s not, again, you can see, it’s not a short term, yeah, this extra strategy can spend six, minimum two years, whatever how long it takes for you to exit

Louis van der Merwe
in a safe manner in

Felicity Guest
a safe manner. And then it’s, you know, recovery, how do you get protected, and then the recovery from that, and our words are, are important, because victims need protection, whether it’s from physical or economic or financial abuse, and then we need to assist them to recover. So what does that look like we in this country, such as for me, it’s pretty exciting, because we’ve got so much work to do, in terms of product in terms of services, but in terms of being better humans, you know, being more aware, how, what does protection look like. And that starts, you know, with our friends, our employers, our service providers, the banks have a wonderful opportunity in this country to get involved in protection, and also in recovery. Because instead of being disadvantaged and discriminated further, by being blacklisted, by financial organizations, it’s, can we assist you to recover, but they need to understand economic and financial abuse before they even get to that point. So the consequences are pretty dire. But exciting, because whatever improvement we make in all sectors will be better for our people. And if we just look at all of this, if we start working cohesively and look at protecting and recovery, we will change the trajectory of gender based violence in this country, which is a pandemic,

Louis van der Merwe
let’s talk about the practical things employers can do to actually support victims in that recovery journey, what does good support look like?

Felicity Guest
Good support would look like understanding what it is, I suppose it would start with your immediate manager, who would then you know, include HR establishing, because economic and financial abuse do not happen in isolation. If this physical abuse is not quite happening, all the other forms of abuse are at play to some degree or the other. It’s having a safe space for the victim. Are you experiencing some kind of abuse, how these are the tools available, this is what we can do in terms of psychosocial, but also in terms of, you know, being a little bit more compassionate about trying to move out and reestablish yourself if you’ve moved out, going to maintenance court, because there’s an assumption maintenance courts work. They don’t, they are dysfunctional. That’s why people give up because they can’t cope once you have escaped an abusive relationship, to have hope in a justice system that fails you is that the final straw, and that people give up because they just can’t deal with a systemic abuse from people, I mean, to protect you, who are now consciously and unconsciously abusing, or we’ll just postpone I mean, when I engage with the DOJ, I say, imagine this fall that you have as a child’s face, a hungry child, who’s possibly going to end up on the streets with their mother. And if you’re going to postpone this case, this is what you would do putting this child at risk. And that changes it. Because this is not just manila folders, you actually humanizing this and that’s what we need to do, particularly in our justice system. And I think that if corporates can understand that a court orders functional, this is an assumption that they work, they don’t work, they are harming the most vulnerable and marginalized of our society. And these are employees who are expected to be happy if they engage with customers, or even with a colleagues. And this doesn’t look good on them. It doesn’t look good on the promotion or if they are on probation. It can As so many compounded impact. So that’s part of protection, understanding, how can we assist you even referring them to my Facebook group, for example, is a form of support because it’s not just emotional support, as most of the people on my group understand what you go, what you’re going through, I can almost predict like, when I consult with clients, I can go, Listen, this is where you are, this is what has happened. And this is what is going to happen. So because it’s almost textbook, you know, it’s so predictable. So I quote, do not resolve even if you have a divorce order, how do you enforce the divorce order through the maintenance courts or through the children’s courts, doesn’t happen, because you then into this, you have to go to High Court, that’s a different story. But it’s going to cost you 50 or 60,000, Rand and most victims don’t have that kind of money, you have your

Louis van der Merwe
resources have been cut off, you know, that isn’t necessarily an option for you.

Felicity Guest
Correct. So you know, it’s education from from every single from justice. corporates have a huge opportunity to actually understand this, not just for the clients, but for the own employees as well, because I can guarantee you that they employing females, that is a large percentage of their female staff that have experienced multiple forms of domestic violence. And if they’ve escaped, that they are experiencing some form of economic and financial, if we look at the figures that we just that I showed you earlier, it’s safe to assume that about 65% of women are not getting any child support. That doesn’t mean they’ve given up, that could mean that they’re still attempting to get money. And these can run cases can run for years, a real zero sum game. And if you look at some of the high court rulings, 2 million Rand in arrears, that’s a lot of money. What has the primary parent absorbed to get that far? And where is that money, so you know, your industry, you can attach pensions, there’s legislation, we’ve just been through workshops with the Law Reform Commission to look at some trusts eager trusts, and to see how we can the law can be more effective in going for lump sums. And that’s indicative of how long arrears run for maybe 2 million Rand debts years, 10 years, 12 years of non payment,

Louis van der Merwe
your someone had to pay for that, right. And it’s the primary caregiver who’s already economically

Felicity Guest
disadvantaged, who’s earning less. So it is a huge effect. And I think if we long term, we’re going to find more mature women ending up destitute dependent on this date, because they’ve spent all the income, raising children and providing for the children and possibly trying to improve them, putting them through tertiary education. And they’re going to end up with art, shelter without housing, turning to government, who then increases taxes. So it’s a societal problem. We’ve got to be aware of this

Louis van der Merwe
Felicity. So on the one hand, we’re saying employers and family members, and people in general can support the victims better. But I’m also curious, how do we prevent this from happening in the first place? Like what do we need to explore to start having better conversations in that aspect?

Felicity Guest
I think we need to look at the way we socialized. You know, it’s one thing to say blame men, that men are socialized, just as we are socialized, we’re socialized to accept men being the product, you know, the providers, but because of the way that society and the world has changed, and the need for women to have to go into the womb, a lot of women have become providers, as you can hear. So what does that do to the male’s identity or being the provider and the protector, one of the family if he starts feeling threatened, whether he is a very controlling person, he feels that you know, I am the head of the household, I am the dominant person in this relationship and imposed relationship that I will show you I will not provide. But how do men identify themselves? Surely is they identify beyond providers and protectors. And we know that men emotionally that’s seen as being feminine, when men are soft and open and vulnerable. Suck up like a girl now. And that’s part of our socialization. Men are capable of being nurturers. So we need to be brave enough to interrogate the way that we are socialized our cultures and say, does it still have meaning in 2022? And men need to have more safe spaces and create those safe spaces to really deconstruct the way they associate us.

Louis van der Merwe
So I think a big part of this is just starting to have these open conversations. You know, maybe prom Seeing your clients if you’re a financial planner, and you’re sitting in front of a client, and you sense that there could be some of these issues, start exploring it and start saying, how do we, how do we work through this instead of just avoiding it? And hoping it would not? It will not happen. One of the discussions we had was almost talking about planning towards a divorce. You know, like in financial planning, we plan for someone to pass away, we plan for people to retire, we plan for people to become disabled yet a much smaller percentage to be able then get divorced. I’m curious, like, why are we not planning? And maybe you’re probably not the right person to ask this question. I’m asking this more to the audience and the people listening. Should we not be prompting, Hey, what is the risk of your relationship not working out? If it doesn’t work out? What is the impact? How do we stop protecting people that are vulnerable?

Felicity Guest
I think those conversations start before you make a commitment in a relationship, particularly if you married because you enter into a legal contract. We need to start the because they introduced a cruel, ante nuptial without accrual. And that has been challenged recently in the court, we waiting for the Concord to ratify the Pretoria High Court’s decision to say this contributes to gender inequality. That’s because our laws are so progressive, clean break divorces. But it doesn’t take into account the women who have sacrificed to economic opportunities are being prevented at the end of the relationship to suddenly be economically competitive. So our very progressive laws are being challenged, because the leg in inequality. So if we go up people who are about to get married, I often say to people do a risk assessment. Have a look at what a divorce agreement looks like, have a look at what a maintenance agreement looks like, or co parenting agreement. Because there’s a greater chance you’re going to have to have a look at those. They’re not if we look at our divorce rates are all cohabiting agreements. And if relationships are healthy, they would have these discussions at start. See. So if you’re about to go into relationship, and you have these conversations, and these are resistance, that’s really a red flag, because that’s going to escalate. So too difficult to advise people who are can only see the positive and are still in the honeymoon or the romantic phase, to be pragmatic, but you know, she said, do a proper risk assessment, so that you are prepared. We still have women today, and men to a lesser extent, hookah, I would never have predicted this. But if you just listen, it’s predictable, it’s going to happen. So what is so special about you, that is not going to happen to you. So prepare for the worst. And then if it doesn’t turn out that way? Well, you know, you’ve prevented to a degree, because that’s how you provide I say that if women if there’s a decision for the woman, to stay at home, after she’s given birth, for a period of time, make provisions for that acknowledge her worth. And it’s not always in monetary value. But if if it’s possible, that those financial provisions are made, and also discuss upskilling, for that time that you’re off home, so that she’s never disadvantaged. Because the sad thing is, is always going to disadvantage our children. But in relationship, just be aware of the red flags. And when, when something doesn’t feel right. Believe it’s not right, and become vigilant. And the sooner you make those decisions, or get help, the better, because the children are the glue that binds you to the piece that if you have no children, very easy to leave the relationship, but a woman’s identity and her future well being changes when she decides to have a child, that’s when she becomes economically vulnerable. It’s affect women who do not have children, have the result them as economically vulnerable as women who do have children.

Louis van der Merwe
And I can see that in my own life. You know, having recently had a little baby and my wife stopped working, having many conversations a lot more difficult. Even though I’m the one that’s probably got a little bit more power in this relationship purely because I’m bringing in the income. So having that conversation is difficult yet. We should be prompting that with Our clients, I love the fact that you said, do a risk assessment, like look at these divorce decrees and start unpacking that yet. We never do that kind of planning with clients or training on and I think there’s a there’s a big element and a gap for you to fall. How do you sustain the work that you’re doing? Who’s who’s supporting these initiatives? And what can we do to rally the troops.

Felicity Guest
Up to this point, I have not had funding. I’ve had a few donations from some of my members. And it’s, I think it’s been so difficult because everything is in its developmental stage. You know, it’s understanding the research. Trying to get the proper information available for South Africa wouldn’t have occurred all the internationals, I still have to look at it from a South African point of view, because we don’t have a social support system. And our legislation is different. So it’s been quite difficult to just have these conversations. But I have now co founded an NPC so that we can do awareness programs, workshops, in corporates, other corporates, but I have also now developed an economic and financial abuse course, very specific for the South African environment, with quite a big focus on coercive and controlling behavior. And then through the maintenance lens, to a degree, we have to understand coercive and controlling behavior over and above you know, for financial because if you have a daughter, if you have a wife, and if you have a daughter close sex is a big thing in this country, human trafficking is a big thing in this country, that if you recognize the the behavior, and we teach our children about cursive and saying no and boundaries, then it’s not just you’re not protecting, particularly girl children. Physically, because most sexual abuse happens from people that we know 95% of them. And if between I think it’s between five and 8% happens from strangers, most of it happens from people we know, stemming from grooming, same behavior, whether it’s economic abuse, financial abuse, sex just becomes one of one of the tools or the behaviors, you know, there’s coercive, controlling behaviors, so important to understand your work partners, your friends, so and then you recognize the tools once you recognize a pattern, if at all. And that’s how we can then start because we’re also responsible, we’ve, it’s been so normalized, starts with us to correct our own coercive and controlling, manipulating intimidating behavior. And then having the conversations and making an d normalizing it, it’s not right to cause harm on anybody, you know, our friends, our partners, and employees, and even our employees, I mean, some employees do to them, it’s recognizing it, because then I think we can develop proper policy in our workspaces. And we can send people for therapy, we can say, here’s a problem, and we’re not going to start preventing it. If we don’t help the person, and we’ve seen this with alcohol abuse, what our employer is required to do, you cannot hire somebody, you have to make an attempt to help them recover. The same with abuse, we need to help them to recover. What does that look like behavior modification, whatever needs to be done, it’s what New Zealand did?

Louis van der Merwe
Is this for the abuser or the victim or abuser? Okay,

Felicity Guest
primarily the abuser to change his behavior to recognize that it’s wrong, that he’s harming himself or the abuser is harming themselves and harming the people around them. For them to get help so that this decreases the conscious keep slapping band aids on you know, stop the bleeding Felicity. It

Louis van der Merwe
sounds like these these practical solutions, right? This is not a new problem yet. We just haven’t addressed it. And it fits in so nicely in the employee well being that everyone loves talking about, but they talk about are you getting to the gym instead? Or are you a victim of economic and financial abuse?

Felicity Guest
And it’s the most pervasive form of abuse, as I say, because it’s silent, it’s invisible. Just can’t see the violence. And if we recognize it, and admit that it’s a form of abuse, then we can start dealing with it.

Louis van der Merwe
How wonderful would it be to have a world where there’s financial planners supporting these victims, there is therapy So that can help them work through this. And we can actually start changing this because I think if once we have that in place, and it becomes normal, it just, you know, improves the well being of our children and the future generations.

Felicity Guest
What it does, but you know, again, it’s it’s developing a policy and having an understanding, to take away the shame and the guilt. So if we take both the victim and the perpetrator is take the shame and the guilt, the perpetrator, and most of it is socialized. And because it’s just never been checked, it’s really got out of hand and become incredibly harmful. And to the point where we see women losing their lives, that we lack the alcoholic, you have a problem, HR, you need to go for, instead of employees, taking the attitude, we don’t get involved in people’s personal lives. Because if a victim contacts the HR or the supervisor, and says, look, what he has done to me, not enforcing a Garnishee Order is as abusive. And we see this, so eventually you get a Garnishee Order for maintenance, the employer does not enforce it. That is that looking at somebody who’s been beaten black and blue and going, Oh, I’m sorry, you’ve been abused, but it’s not our problem. That’s personal, we don’t bring the personal stuff into the workplace. And again, it’s the secrecy. They don’t want people to know. And we know it’s so prevalent in this country, it’s, it’s kind of going, assuming that people are abusers, which is not always popular, but it’s assuming that people are abusers. And being aware and going, we have this is identifying it, and getting service providers to deal specifically. And I think it starts with general conversations, having workshops and companies generally about what economic and financial abuse looks like, because a lot of people would feel uncomfortable and go, Oh, my gosh, I recognize my own behavior in that and start automatically

Louis van der Merwe
that I thought, wow, that could have been seen as being manipulative or controlling.

Felicity Guest
And then you become aware because I mean, so much, so many of us are doing our own healing work so that we can develop and become better human beings. So a lot of us are able to take responsibility, and say, Okay, I need I’m aware of this. Now, I need to change this. So the best way to do it is to expose your employees to this in general terms, because then it becomes a lot more open. And then you can start dealing with individuals we recognize or we become aware or you’re going to maintenance cause we suggest that you go on a course to understand economic and financial abuse and the harms that causes without it being punitive without them feeling shame, or guilt.

Louis van der Merwe
Felicity, thank you so much for the work you’re doing. If we have listeners that want to support you want to reach out to you what’s the best way for them to do that?

Felicity Guest
The best way to get ahold of me is through Facebook is Felicity and guest on LinkedIn solicited guest or via email. Felicity dot CMD is CMD is a@gmail.com. If they’re interested in partnering with us, with our NPC, its Institute of social justice, social development and Justice.

Louis van der Merwe
Thank you so much. We’ll add those links to the show notes. And anyone that would love to reach out, I would urge them to do so. And let’s start having these conversations with our friends and our employees and our clients to hopefully start improving the lives of the victims.

Felicity Guest
Absolutely. So exciting because I mean, whatever work we do is going to improve and that’s what really really excites me. So thank you for having me and thank you for this opportunity of creating more awareness.