In Ireland, over 198,000 women (over 15) are financially abused by their partners. Abusive partners completely control or deny their victims access to money, including their own salaries, incur huge debts in their name, or forge their identity on financial documents. This traps women in unsafe and abusive relationships, with no means to leave.
Even as Ireland’s closest neighbour, the United Kingdom, introduced legislation to make financial abuse a crime, following its banking sector introducing a code of conduct around the issue, no one was taking a leadership position within the country. So as Ireland’s biggest financial institution, Allied Irish Bank (AIB) decided to partner with Women’s Aid and change that.
Our objectives were to raise public awareness around financial abuse and, in turn, encourage affected women, or their concerned family and friends, to take the first step to leaving abusive partners by contacting the charity’s 24-hour free helpline.
For our Abusive Teller Machine campaign, we reprogrammed an AIB ATM in one of the bank’s busiest branches to behave like a controlling, financially abusive partner for one day. As customers attempted to withdraw money as normal, they were instead confronted with a series of escalating questions and threats to respond to, based on consultations with financial abuse survivors. These included, ‘Why do you need more money?’ ‘TELL ME THE TRUTH’ ‘Are you hiding money from me?’ ‘If you’re lying I’ll find out.’. Having endured the questioning, customers were ultimately denied access to their money, before the reason for the experience was revealed. On-screen prompts and a specially created ATM receipt directed customers to call Women’s Aid free helpline if they recognised the same abusive behaviour in their own relationship, or in that of someone they knew. The activation was filmed and released across AIB and Women’s Aid social channels, along with an ad-break takeover on TV.
The launch of the film, and the scale of the issue it revealed, sparked a national conversation in Ireland, picking up widespread coverage across Ireland’s national broadcaster RTE, major newspaper mastheads, drivetime radio programs, popular podcast ‘Girls With Goals’ and across social media, where it was viewed over 500,000 times and shared hundreds more times within 48 hours of its launch. Women’s Aid were invited to appear on Ireland’s most popular talkback show Liveline to discuss the campaign and collaboration with AIB, while survivors came forward on Twitter and Facebook to share their own harrowing stories of financial abuse, encouraging other Irish women currently suffering financial abuse to seek support and escape their abusive relationships. Most importantly, for the first time in its history, 1 out of every 4 calls to Women’s Aid helpline were about financial abuse, as awareness turned into positive action for women around Ireland.
