“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.
Violence against women is often described as a social injustice or a human rights violation. While both are accurate, this framing overlooks a critical reality: violence against women is also a powerful economic barrier. It limits women’s choices, disrupts livelihoods, and quietly strips away financial independence. Long before violence leaves visible marks, it erodes opportunity, confidence, and economic security.
Gender-based violence pushes women out of education, forces them out of jobs, and restricts their ability to participate fully in the economy. Fear replaces ambition. Dependence replaces independence. Over time, violence becomes an economic system one that keeps women financially vulnerable and structurally excluded from power.
History, however, offers a different possibility. When laws are strong, enforced, and rooted in justice, they do more than punish violence. Strong laws empower women. They provide legal protection, institutional support, and the confidence needed to rebuild lives. From violence to financial freedom, the bridge is law and how seriously societies choose to uphold it.
Violence as an Invisible Economic Prison
Violence against women is rarely random. It is often systematic and deeply connected to economic control. Abusers frequently restrict access to money, prevent women from working, sabotage education, or seize financial assets. This form of economic abuse creates dependency and makes escape extremely difficult.
Women experiencing domestic or gender-based violence are significantly more likely to miss work, lose employment, accept lower wages, or leave the workforce entirely. Trauma affects concentration and productivity, while fear limits mobility and opportunity. In informal and precarious employment sectors, the economic impact is even more severe.
his is why violence against women must be understood as an economic issue, not only a moral one. When women lack financial independence, violence becomes easier to sustain. Poverty, inequality, and abuse reinforce one another in a cycle that quietly passes across generations.
Weak legal systems are not neutral. When laws fail to protect women, they indirectly protect violence. Silence within the legal framework becomes complicity.
How Strong Laws Shift Power and Possibility
Strong laws change more than outcomes they change power dynamics. When legislation clearly defines domestic violence, sexual harassment, workplace abuse, and economic coercion as crimes, it sends a powerful message: women’s safety is a public responsibility, not a private matter.
Legal protection creates stability, and stability enables economic participation. A woman who knows the law is on her side is more likely to pursue education, seek employment, start a business, or demand fair pay. Safety becomes the foundation upon which financial freedom is built.
Globally, countries with comprehensive and enforced gender-justice laws report higher levels of women’s workforce participation, entrepreneurship, and household economic stability. When justice systems respond effectively, women remain economically active and socially empowered.
As legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon observed:
“Inequality is socially constructed. Law can either reinforce it or dismantle it.”
Strong laws dismantle inequality by turning rights into lived reality.
When Safety Unlocks Economic Opportunity
For women, financial freedom does not begin with ambition alone. It begins with safety. A secure home, a protected workplace, and reliable access to justice are essential conditions for economic growth and women’s empowerment.
Workplace laws addressing sexual harassment allow women to work without fear or humiliation. Property and inheritance laws give women access to assets, credit, and long-term wealth. Survivor compensation, shelters, and paid leave policies provide time and space to recover and rebuild.
Protecting women does not weaken economies; it strengthens them. When women are safe, they work consistently. When they work, they earn and invest. When they invest, communities grow. The connection between protection and prosperity is direct, measurable, and proven.
Strong laws transform safety into opportunity.
From Legal Protection to Financial Independence
Empowering laws are deliberate. They recognise that justice must be practical, not symbolic. Legal aid services, fast-track courts, survivor funds, and employment protections ensure that women are not forced to choose between survival and dignity.
There is a critical difference between laws that exist on paper and laws that are enforced. The former offer hope; the latter deliver freedom. Enforcement is what transforms legislation into real economic empowerment.
When women can access justice without fear, delay, or financial burden, they gain control over their futures. Legal empowerment enables women to secure employment, access credit, own property, and make independent financial decisions.
Law, when enforced, becomes a tool of economic liberation.
Breaking the Cycle of Intergenerational Inequality
The impact of strong laws extends beyond individual women. It reshapes families and future generations. Children raised in violence-free households experience better health, stronger educational outcomes, and greater economic stability.
A woman’s financial independence often becomes her children’s opportunity. When women control income, they invest in nutrition, healthcare, and education. Legal protection therefore becomes a long-term development strategy that strengthens entire communities.
Economic empowerment rooted in justice is sustainable empowerment.
The Economic Cost of Weak Laws
Where laws are weak, outdated, or poorly enforced, the cost is shared by society. Economies lose productivity. Healthcare systems absorb preventable trauma. Legal institutions lose public trust. Most tragically, women lose years of potential that can never be recovered.
Impunity enables violence, and violence deepens inequality. Employment programs and skill-development initiatives cannot succeed where women remain unsafe.
Freedom cannot exist in fear.
Institutions, Accountability, and Access to Justice
Strong laws require strong institutions. Police responsiveness, judicial sensitivity, survivor-centred procedures, and accountability mechanisms determine whether justice is meaningful or merely symbolic. Training law enforcement and judicial officials is as essential as passing legislation.
Access is equally important. Laws must reach rural women, informal workers, migrants, and marginalised communities. Justice delayed or denied to some weakens justice for all.
When institutions function effectively, trust grows and trust empowers women to step forward.
From Survival to Leadership
The ultimate purpose of strong laws is not survival alone, but leadership. When women are free from fear, they move into positions of influence as entrepreneurs, policymakers, educators, and innovators.
Financial freedom allows women to shape economies, influence decisions, and redefine power. Laws that protect women from violence quietly create inclusive leadership.
As Malala Yousafzai says:
“We cannot succeed when half of us are held back.”
Strong laws do not merely protect women. They move societies forward.
Law as the Architecture of Freedom
From violence to financial freedom is not an abstract idea; it is a real journey that millions of women navigate every day. Strong laws make that journey possible. They turn fear into security, dependence into independence, and survival into dignity.
For organisations like She Breaks Barrier, the mission is clear: advocate for laws that do not merely exist, but empower laws that do not only punish, but transform.
Justice is not only about safety.
Justice is about opportunity.
Justice is about freedom.
And freedom, when protected by strong laws, becomes unstoppable.
For more understanding –
- UN Women Economic Costs of Violence Against Women. UN Women Facts & Figures on Violence Against Women – https://www.unwomen.org/en/articles/facts-and-figures/ending-violence-against-women
- Women, Business and the Law (World Bank Group) – https://wbl.worldbank.org/en/wbl