'Cold violence': The hidden emotional abuse harming elderly Chinese migrants in New Zealand

In New Zealand, one in ten people over 65 experiences some form of elder abuse. Yet the most damaging form may be the hardest to see. Researchers studying the Chinese migrant community have identified what they call "cold violence"—a deliberate, sustained withdrawal of emotional support and communication by someone in a position of power within a care relationship. Unlike physical abuse or financial exploitation, cold violence leaves no marks, no paper trail, no visible sign of harm. A caregiver can simply stop speaking to an older person, can look at them with disdain or disgust, can refuse to engage—and maintain complete plausibility that nothing wrong has occurred.

The prevalence of elder abuse in New Zealand is already troubling. Last year alone brought numerous reports of neglect, financial exploitation, and physical or verbal mistreatment of older people. But only one in fourteen cases of abuse ever reaches a service agency equipped to intervene. The reasons are complex: older people often do not disclose what is happening to them. Friends, neighbors, other family members, or health practitioners may notice something is wrong, but the harm can be so subtle that even the person experiencing it struggles to name what is occurring.

Cold violence operates in this shadow. It is emotional abuse, but it works through absence rather than action. A caregiver withdraws communication and care deliberately and for an extended period, using this withdrawal as punishment or as a tool to limit an older person's independence and freedom. Because nothing is actively done—no blow is struck, no money is taken—the person inflicting the harm can deny responsibility. They simply did nothing. This failure to respond to need is what transforms inaction into abuse, yet it remains nearly invisible to outside observers.

Within the Chinese migrant community in Aotearoa New Zealand, researchers found that older people identified cold violence as particularly common and particularly damaging. This is not incidental. Chinese culture places strong emphasis on filial reverence, on the expectation that younger generations will prioritize the needs and concerns of their elders. To be rejected by family in this context is not merely hurtful; it strikes at the core of how an older person understands their place in the world. Study participants described the experience as heartbreaking, as mental torture. The nonverbal dimensions—the looks of disdain, the deliberate refusal to acknowledge someone's presence—compounded the psychological injury.

The vulnerability of older Chinese migrants who arrived in New Zealand later in life amplifies the harm. Many lack fluency in English, cannot drive, and do not know how to navigate institutional systems independently. They are profoundly dependent on younger family members for access to basic services, for transportation, for the ability to function in daily life. When a caregiver withdraws emotional support and communication in this context, the older person is not merely hurt; they are destabilized. They become unsure how to act. They lose access to the one person who could help them meet their fundamental needs. Cold violence, in these circumstances, is not an abstract emotional injury. It is a practical catastrophe.

Yet there is a significant gap between how this harm is understood by those experiencing it and how it is understood by those in a position to help. Family caregivers—often sandwiched between aging parents and young children, working under severe financial and time pressure with little formal support—frequently described their emotional withdrawal as an unintentional consequence of stress and exhaustion. One caregiver explained the bind: "There are old people above and young children below, and their energy is limited. They have tried their best." Practitioners similarly attributed neglectful behavior to caregiver stress rather than to intentional abuse. This reframing is understandable but consequential. It shifts responsibility away from the person inflicting harm and toward the circumstances constraining them. It obscures the fact that an older person is suffering.

The mismatch points toward what must change. Service providers, family members, and communities need education about forms of elder abuse that do not announce themselves through visible injury or financial irregularity. They need to understand how cold violence operates differently across cultural contexts, and how cultural values around family obligation can make this particular form of abuse especially damaging. They need to hear from older people themselves about what they are experiencing, rather than filtering that experience through the lens of caregiver stress. Creating safe environments for people to age with dignity requires recognizing that harm can occur through withdrawal as much as through action, and that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.