Petition

To All UK MPs

Please change the law to make sure that leaders of groups that use coercive control to manipulate their followers, like cults, can be punished and prevented from doing more harm in the future.

More information

Coercively-controlling groups include religious cults, but can be non-religious, such as political groups (e.g. some far-right extremist groups), personal development and wellness outfits and yoga groups. There are also individual examples of this abuse, such as between “therapists” and clients.

People affected by these groups have experienced sexual and physical abuse, financial exploitation and long-term psychological harms affecting mental and physical health. Children who have grown up in these groups often experience lasting consequences from trauma, missed education and other forms of abuse.

Coercive control laws already recognise the forms of abuse which occur in these groups, but because the laws only apply in domestic and intimate settings it is rare to secure a prosecution, leaving abusers free to abuse again. Widening the law to ensure that leaders of groups as well as offenders within domestic contexts could be prosecuted would stop more of doing harm.