25 November marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (and AWARE’s official birthday). It’s also the start of 16 days of activism culminating in International Human Rights Day. For this year’s IDEVAW, we’re focusing on coercive control—an insidious form of domestic violence that is as yet little understood in the Singapore context.

Coercive control is a pattern of threats, humiliation, intimidation, isolation, regulation, monitoring and/or assault. These acts are designed to make a person—often an intimate partner or family member—subordinate to and/or dependent on the perpetrator. However, because the acts don’t always fit mainstream ideas of “abuse”, victims and people around them might not instinctively identify coercive control as violence.

Our goal is to change that. We’ve worked with artist Charis Loke to create this series of comics about coercive control. First up is this primer: a quick overview of what this type of abuse entails. We’ll follow up next week with three short stories, loosely adapted from the experiences of coercive control survivors to whom AWARE has given support.

If you suspect that you are going through coercive control, call our Women’s Helpline for assistance at 1800 777 5555 (Mon-Fri, 10am-6pm).

[Content warning: domestic violence]

Comic 1: Identifying coercive control

Comic 2: “Couldn’t you see what was going on?”

Comic 3: “Who’s going to look at you?”

Comic 3: “The kids don’t love you.”