Coercive control in the context of Sexual abuse

Harassment covers a wide range of behaviors of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behavior that demeans, humiliates, and intimidates a person. In the legal sense, these are behaviors that are disturbing, upsetting, or threatening to a person. Some harassment evolves from discriminatory grounds, and has the effect of nullifying a person's rights or impairing a person from utilising their rights.

When harassing behaviors become repetitive, it is defined as bullying. The continuity or repetitiveness and the aspect of distressing, alarming or threatening may distinguish it from insult. It also constitutes a tactic of coercive control, which may be deployed by an abuser. Harassment is a specific form of discrimination, and occurs when a person is the victim of unwanted intimidating, offensive, or humiliating behavior.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is domestic violence by a current or former spouse or partner in an intimate relationship against the other spouse or partner. IPV can take a number of forms, including physical, verbal, emotional, economic and sexual abuse. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines IPV as "any behavior within an intimate relationship that causes physical, psychological or sexual harm to those in the relationship, including acts of physical aggression, sexual coercion, psychological abuse and controlling behaviors." IPV is sometimes referred to simply as battery, or as spouse or partner abuse.

The most extreme form of IPV is termed intimate terrorism, coercive controlling violence, or simply coercive control. In such situations, one partner is systematically violent and controlling. This is generally perpetrated by men against women, and is the most likely of the types to require medical services and the use of a women's shelter. Resistance to intimate terrorism, which is a form of self-defense, and is termed violent resistance, is usually conducted by women.

Femicide or feminicide is the intentional murder that exclusively targets women or girls because of their gender or murder that disproportionately targets women or girls. It is often done as a method to control. According to UN's estimates, the interval within femicides of women and girls by their family members, partners or non-intimate individuals globally is every 10 minutes. Causes of femicide include bigotry, jealousy, revenge, male entitlement, gender bias, harmful gender roles, gender stereotypes, cultural phenomenons such as so-called "honor killings" or female genital mutilation (particularly Type 3), as well as coercive control, stopping a pregnancy, social beliefs such as sati, and masculine hegemony that perpetuates the unequal power between men and women.

A spouse or partner is responsible for almost 40% of femicides, or homicides of a female victim. Additionally, femicide may be underreported due to insufficient evidence. Femicide often includes domestic violence and forced abortions. In China, femicide occurs as sex-selective abortions, while other cultures use gender-selective infanticide and geronticide to perform femicide.