Written by Following on from their webinar on Child Poverty (October 2024), and to coincide with Challenge Poverty Week in England and Wales (12–18 October 2026), the Social Responsibility Committee of the NBCW hosted a webinar on Tuesday 13 October 2026 on What Drives Women into Poverty, shining the spotlight on women in poverty.
Poverty is defined as the ‘inability within society to meet minimum needs owing to a lack of material resources’, often as a result of the vicissitudes of life, such as job loss, health problems within the family, precarious employment and the increase in the cost of living.
Chaired by Jenny Hayward-Jones (CAFOD), this event focused on two frequently overlooked areas, which are also major contributors to such poverty: unpaid care and coercive control.
The webinar featured presentations from experts in the field: Emily Holzhausen CBE of Carers UK, who highlighted the issues confronting unpaid carers, and Dr Susan Longhurst, theologian and lecturer at St Mary’s University Twickenham, who explored coercive control within the home and the Church’s response to married women who are victims of domestic abuse.
There was also an opportunity for participants to discuss these issues with each other and to consider ways in which parishes can help. Both presentations were interesting, informative and thought-provoking, generating a lot of discussion among participants.
Unpaid care: What drives women into poverty?
In her presentation, Emily Holzhausen talked about the issues confronting unpaid carers. She first gave a brief history of how Carers UK started, charting the story of Rev. Mary Webster who, at the age of 31, had to leave her post to care for her elderly parents and experienced first-hand economic hardship and isolation.
Mary thereupon set out to highlight these problems, which led to the creation of the National Council for the Single Woman and Dependents in 1965 and the Dependent Relative Tax Allowance in 1967. Since her death in 1969, the small organisation has grown, merging with other carers’ groups to become Carers UK.
Emily explained what Carers UK does to help carers across the country. She also cited some startling facts which shocked many of our participants:
- 59% of unpaid carers are women. Many have had to leave work to care for sick or disabled dependants. Approximately 1,500 women a day leave paid employment to care for sick relatives.
- Women often start as unpaid carers around the age of 46, compared with men, who start at 57.
- Most women carers are in part-time positions, which in turn limits their own economic and professional development.
- One-third of the NHS workforce (32%) are unpaid carers.
- 1.2 million unpaid carers live in poverty, the majority of whom are women.
- Seven out of ten claimants of Carer’s Allowance are women.
- Carer’s Allowance is £86.45 for 35 hours of care, far below the Minimum Wage.
- Unpaid carers receive lower pensions because of the employment issues outlined above.
Emily ended her presentation by saying that caring is seen as women’s work and women’s duty. She highlighted ways in which we can support carers, namely by campaigning for better employment conditions for women with dependants, better social care and an increase in Carer’s Allowance.
Coercive control and the annulment process
In her presentation on Coercive Control and the Annulment Process, Susan Longhurst focused on types of coercive control, which are insidious and not always easily recognised. Abuse can start gradually and spread steadily before anyone, even the victim, realises its harmful and destructive nature.
Abuse occurs as a pattern over time, with the abuser starting with love bombing, then progressing to increasing control, isolating the victim (usually the wife or girlfriend), and finally overt abuse.
Recognition by the victim is often delayed. Victims may later describe themselves as having been ‘asleep’ or ‘under a spell’. Abuse can take the form of jealousy, financial control and manipulation, often wrapped up in spiritual language, family pressure or an idealised notion of Catholic marriage.
Coercive control is therefore often hidden from view, eroding the victim’s autonomy and self-worth through psychological, financial and spiritual manipulation.
Susan described spiritual abuse as the use of faith as a means of control, involving a systematic pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour within a religious context. In effect, the Church’s teachings are deliberately and specifically turned against women.
Susan referred to Pope Francis’s 2015 Apostolic Letter Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus (The Gentle Judge, our Lord Jesus), which addresses the reform of canonical procedures concerning the nullity of marriage.
The purpose of this document was to reform canonical procedures regarding declarations of nullity (annulments), shorten the process through the briefer process (Processus Brevior) and remove the requirement for mandatory appeals for a second-instance review of every affirmative case of nullity.
However, the reform upheld the principle of the lifelong indissolubility of sacramental marriage, reaffirming the Church’s fundamental teaching on Catholic marriage as a sacrament which cannot be dissolved.
Susan explained the grounds for an annulment of a Catholic marriage where domestic abuse is a factor, citing three Canons:
- Canon 1095 (3): Incapacity – owing to causes of a psychological nature which prevent a party from assuming the essential obligations of marriage.
- Canon 1098: Deceit – where a party is deceived by fraud, perpetrated to obtain matrimonial consent, concerning some quality of the other party which by its nature can seriously disturb the partnership of conjugal life.
- Canon 1101 §2: Exclusion – where a party, by a positive act of the will, excludes marriage itself, an essential element of marriage, or an essential property of marriage.
In cases of harmful domestic abuse where the victim’s life is at risk, the victim is advised to seek a civil divorce.
To seek a Catholic annulment, the victim must approach the appropriate Church tribunal. The case is considered by an ecclesiastical tribunal, which may include men and women, and professionals may be consulted, potentially incurring costs for the victim.
The victim may also have to:
- Give evidence of abuse, raising significant spiritual, canonical and pastoral challenges for both the victim and the parish community.
- Provide evidential proof of abuse.
- Run the risk of disclosure, which could threaten the victim further.
- Submit to repeated trauma as they relive the abuse.
- Give testimony which may be construed as inconsistent, dishonest or contradictory owing to the psychological effects of abuse.
The outcome of a nullity case also depends on the individual circumstances and the handling of the process by the tribunal.
According to Susan, further reform is essential, including:
- Greater canonical recognition of coercive control as a form of domestic abuse.
- Better formation and more training for pastoral teams and parish priests.
- A better trauma-informed process.
- More explicit national guidelines on this issue.
Domestic abuse: The wider picture
According to Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures for the year ending March 2025, 7.8% of the population of England and Wales had experienced abuse since the age of 16, amounting to 3.8 million people, including an estimated 2.2 million women and girls (Crime Survey for England and Wales).
If you missed the webinar, you can access it here.
Get involved
Want to make a difference and support the Church’s social justice teaching through advocacy? Why not join the Social Responsibility Committee?
The committee meets for an hour every two months to discuss policies, issues and campaigns, as well as organise webinars to raise public awareness of issues affecting women and the vulnerable in our society.
Rose Cartledge
October 2026