If you or someone you know has experienced domestic violence, call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673. Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.

You can also contact Kentucky’s 15 Domestic Violence Programs.

A Northern Kentucky Republican plans to introduce a bill that would expand Kentucky’s protective orders law to include coercive controls.

Republican Rep. Stephanie Dietz of Edgewood presented a draft of her bill to the interim Joint Judiciary Committee in Frankfort last week.

“We are all aware of the devastating impact of domestic violence on individuals, families and communities,” she said. “There is a significant gap in our current laws that we can address and that is coercive control.”

Currently, someone in Kentucky can get a restraining order if they have experienced physical violence or are in imminent danger of physical violence, but some victims face more nuanced abuse, Dietz explained.

“It is a pattern of behavior designed to undermine a victim’s autonomy and freedom,” she said of coercive control. “This can include manipulation, isolation, financial control and threats, which, while not necessarily involving physical violence, are equally devastating.”

Coercive control is a “consistent” and “repeated” behavior in which one person exerts control over another through isolation, threats, surveillance, loss of financial freedom and access to medical care and increased control, explains Christy Burch, executive director of the ION Center for Violence Prevention in Northern Kentucky.

The ION Center provides free services in a 13-county area, including emergency shelters, pet boarding, and court representation for victims of domestic violence.

Because of the “complete dominance,” Burch explained, people in these situations can experience “a loss of their entire self.”

Such control does not always include physical violence, Burch said, but it can certainly result in it. People in such situations may lose access to money, be unable to drive or seek medical care and more, she said. They may be encouraged to quit their jobs, stop seeing their friends or be threatened with separation from their children.

“Coercive control is absolute control,” she told MPs. “We worked with a survivor who had three children. The children were never allowed to play outside. The mother was not allowed to potty train the children. The perpetrator denied soap, hygiene products, hygiene times, controlled food and checked whether the children were allowed to go to school.”

Giving victims of coercive restraints the opportunity to obtain protective orders, Burch said, would bring Kentucky into line with eight other states that have coercive restraint language in their laws. Another eight states, including Illinois, have similar language.

This story originally appeared on kentuckylantern.com.

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