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* Banks, law firms respond to staff, customer pleas
* Lockdown has led to rise in calls to abuse helplines
* New legislation to legally recognise economic abuse
By Sinead Cruise and Kirstin Ridley
LONDON, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Some of Britain's biggest
financial and legal firms have stepped up support for staff and
customers suffering domestic abuse after the coronavirus
lockdown shed new light on the scale of a problem affecting
millions nationwide.
Legislation now progressing through parliament suggests this
is costing Britain 66 billion pounds ($86 billion) a year, with
official figures estimating around 2 million people, mainly
women aged 16 to 74, suffer some form of domestic abuse.
The Domestic Abuse Bill will introduce a statutory
definition that includes physical violence but also emotional,
coercive and economic abuse, after extensive lobbying by the
charity Surviving Economic Abuse and the financial sector.
As the coronavirus pandemic forces millions to work from
home and calls to helplines surge, Lloyds Banking Group
and NatWest Group have teamed up with charities
SafeLives and Surviving Economic Abuse to offer financial as
well as practical aid to victims.
And with remote working increasing social isolation, some
firms are also striving to help staff.
Lloyds, Britain's biggest retail bank with about 65,000
employees, has launched an emergency programme that offers
vulnerable staff and their children refuge in a hotel, travel
and living expenses, as well as advice and compassionate leave.
Law firm Linklaters is offering a similar package, saying
the crisis had put the onus on employers to tackle what the
United Nations calls a "shadow pandemic" of violence against
women.
"For too long it has been left to a small number of highly
specialist, feminist organisations to make the case for bringing
an end to domestic abuse, and trying to find the means to do
that," SafeLives' Chief Executive Suzanne Jacob said.
"As major companies start to think in a new way about their
workforce and their customers, so much more is possible."
Domestic abuse charity Refuge said it has received more than
40,000 calls since Britain's lockdown began in March and, as
restrictions eased, the number of people needing emergency
accommodation rose 54% in the first week of July.
The FICC Markets Standards Board last month warned that
abuse can go undetected without face-to-face interaction, which
has declined during widespread remote working.
"What could have been seen purely as a domestic issue all of
a sudden was more clearly a workplace issue and you have to take
action," Jenny Lloyd, diversity and wellbeing manager at
Linklaters, said.
The Metropolitan Police, which covers London, said domestic
violence reports rose by a third in the six weeks to April 24,
while its officers made around 100 arrests a day.
"With more people working from home than ever before, this
issue needs urgent attention in many employers," a spokesman for
employee union Unite said.
CRITICAL ROLE
Economic or financial abuse can leave victims with no access
to money or bank accounts and vulnerable to debts built up by
their partners, even after they have fled an abusive home.
With thousands of tell-tale datapoints at their fingertips,
financial firms are often on the frontline of the fight against
such abuse, but cannot act before a customer asks for help.
NatWest launched a 1 million pound fund in June to provide
financial lifelines to victims without the means to rebuild
their lives. This will make grants to cover the costs of food
and household bills.
More than a dozen companies have approached SafeLives for
advice and help in devising support packages since March.
"People have had a number of lights turned on about what it
might mean to have a duty of care to staff when they are not in
a typical workspace," SafeLives' Jacob said.
NatWest's Customer Protection Manager Kim Chambers said her
team provided support to 325 people in the second quarter, with
70% saying their abusers had used money to control them.
Barclays, HSBC and insurer Aviva,
have trained thousands of staff to identify signs of financial
abuse so they can respond better to those at risk.
Banks can now also offer to block joint accounts in dispute,
remove names without both parties present and open new accounts
with different sort codes to hide a victim's new location.
"Banks have a critical role to play in supporting survivors
of economic abuse," NatWest CEO Alison Rose said.
($1 = 0.7645 pounds)
(Editing by Nick Tattersall and Alexander Smith)
