Gender Equality United States Project #21037

Legal Help for Domestic Violence Victims

by National Network to End Domestic Violence

Project Report | Dec 14, 2021
Legal Information Promotes Safety

By By Stacey Saver | WomensLaw Director

From May 1, 2021, to July 31, 2021, 1,095,280 people accessed the life-saving information that is housed on WomensLaw.org.

In the past three months (May 1, 2021, to July 31, 2021), we worked directly with 1,423 victims, survivors, and their friends, advocates, or family members through our Email Hotline. This unique hotline offers victims a direct line to ask a question of our attorneys and volunteers, who specialize in domestic violence and the law. We respond to every request as quickly as possible but take time to respond thoughtfully and include individualized resources and information. We frequently correspond back and forth with the individuals who write in, and many are grateful for our assistance and support. We also hear from the advocates providing direct services to victims who use WomensLaw.org to support their clients. Some responses we have received over the Email Hotline are below:

“…Your support, kindness and guidance has made such a difference in the difficult situation I am currently in. To reach out as a vulnerable person and be met with such compassion and understanding is something I will take with me as I continue onwards...” (WomensLaw Email Hotline, June 2021)

And:

“I cannot thank you enough for your enormous help, and all the research that you have done for us. This actually made me cry.” (WomensLaw Email Hotline, June 2021)

We answer questions and provide our expertise on a wide range of topics - including custody, divorce, relocation, and more. Often, victims or their loved ones are writing in to us to get some basic legal information about their situation when they cannot find legal representation. Although we do not provide legal advice, we can explain relevant laws that may help the victim to make an informed decision.

It is especially rewarding when someone tells us that we explained the information and provided resources in a way that helps them understand their options and think through what to do next. Here is one reply that we received on the Email Hotline from a victim trying to better understand their legal options:

“Thank you for your heartfelt and informative reply to my email. I appreciate the straight forward, kind and thorough letter you sent, thank you. Thank you for sending so much information my way. You have helped me to understand more of the judicial process. I appreciate your kind assistance, your time, positive support and the detailed help you sent. Thank you again beyond words I can express.”

(WomensLaw Email Hotline response, July 2021)

We are constantly updating our website (http://www.WomensLaw.org) – making changes and additions to it daily. Our priority is to make sure that the legal information that we have is current with changes in the laws and to continue to add new information that would be useful for victims and survivors of abuse. Between May 1, 2021 and July 31, 2021, we made the following updates:

We updated our California Workplace Protections section based upon statutory changes. We also added an additional revenge porn statute on our California Crimes page as well as the related Selected California Statues. Changes made in English; Spanish coming soon!
On our California Domestic Violence Restraining Orders page, based on changes to the law, we updated What if the abuser violates the order? to include information about probation or a conditional sentence as a possible punishment, as well as the increased penalties for multiple violations. We also updated What is the legal definition of domestic violence in California? to expand upon the definition for disturbing one’s peace and coercive control. Changes made in English.
In our Colorado Protection Orders for Stalking, Sexual Assault, Physical Harm/Threats, and Abuse of Elderly/At-Risk Adult page, we updated the legal definition of mistreatment in What is the legal definition of mistreatment/abuse of the elderly or an at-risk adult? based on changes to the law. Changes made in English; Spanish soon to come. We also added one related statute to our Selected Colorado Statutes page.
Based on 2021 changes to the law, we added information to three questions in English and Spanish in our D.C. State Gun Laws page about not being able to get a firearm when there is an ex parte extreme risk protection order in place, not just a final order. In addition, in our D.C. Extreme Risk Protection Orders section, we updated How do I get an extreme risk protection order? in our to remove the requirement to attach evidence and supporting document to the petition when filing, We also updated What types of orders are there? How long do they last? to increase the length of an order from 10 days to 14 days as well as to explain that the judge can extend an ex parte order for additional 14-day periods in English and Spanish.
With the help of ASISTA, we completely re-wrote our VAWA Battered Spouse or Child Waivers section, adding 14 new questions, and our VAWA Self-petitions section, with 27 new questions. Changes made in English; Spanish soon to come.
In our Florida Injunction for Protections Against Domestic Violence section, based on changes to the law, we included protections available for pets in What protections can I get in an injunction for protection against domestic violence? We also improved the question by delineating adding the protections you can get in temporary, ex parte order. In addition, in our Florida Custody section, we revised I am a member of the child’s extended family. Can I get temporary or concurrent custody of the child? based on changes to the law about the requirements to file for concurrent custody and to include the definition of extended family member, which now includes “fictive kin.” Changes made in English; Spanish coming soon. We also added a related statute to our Selected Florida Statutes page.
We updated in English and Spanish the Restraining Order Cases During COVID-19 section and the Virtual Hearings During COVID-19 section to remove outdated information now that the pandemic is improving.
Based on changes to the law, we updated Who can get a protective order? in our Louisiana Protective Orders (for Domestic Abuse) section to include the following additional definitions of “family members” and “household members”: the other parent of the abuser’s child; the other foster parent of the abuser’s foster child; any child who live(d) in the same home as the abuser; and other relatives, known in the law as ”ascendants” and ”descendants”. Additionally, in What is the legal definition of domestic abuse in Louisiana? we clarified the definition of ”abuse of an adult” that is committed by an adult child to explain that “abuse” can include physical or mental injury, sexual abuse, abandonment, isolation, exploitation, or extortion of funds or other things of value.
On our Minnesota Local Programs page, we updated 17 local programs and added 27 new programs. All changes were made in English and, for the first time, all resources were translated into Spanish!
Based on 2021 changes to the law that replaced the term “mentally defective” with “incapable of appraising the nature of a person’s conduct” in the definition of sexual abuse, we updated What is the legal definition of sexual abuse? in our Oregon Sexual Abuse Protection Orders page in English. Spanish soon to come!
In our Pennsylvania Custody section, we revised If my child was conceived from sexual assault, can the offender get custody or visitation? to include information about filing a petition to terminate the offender’s parental rights in English and Spanish. We also added four related statutes to our Selected Pennsylvania Statutes section in English.
Starting on the translation of our 27th state, we translated the Wisconsin Domestic Abuse Injunctions page into Spanish!

See all of the changes and updates we have made on our What’s New page.

Thank you for supporting WomensLaw and the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV).

Stay in the loop! Sign up for occasional action alerts and updates from NNEDV at: NNEDV.org/signup

Links:

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Jun 18, 2021
Legal Information Promotes Safety

By Stacey Saver | WomensLaw Director

WomensLaw is the first and only free, legal resource for survivors of domestic & dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking that offers safety and legal information and resources in "plain language" in both English and Spanish. We are dedicated to empowering survivors and their advocates to make informed decisions about their options, safety, and legal remedies.

From February 1, 2021 to April 30, 2021, 989,122 people accessed the life-saving information that is housed on WomensLaw.org.

In the past three months (February 2021 through April 2021), we worked directly with 1,168 victims, survivors, and their friends, advocates, or family members through our Email Hotline. This unique hotline offers victims a direct line to ask a question of our attorneys and volunteers, who specialize in domestic violence and the law. We respond to every request as quickly as possible, but take time to respond thoughtfully and include individualized resources and information. We frequently correspond back and forth with the women and men who write in, and many are grateful for our assistance and support. We also hear from the advocates providing direct services to victims who use WomensLaw.org to support their clients. Some responses we have received over the Email Hotline are below:

I am so grateful and impressed at how much time and effort you went through to provide me with the information below - thank you. I expected a short answer but you went above and beyond my expectations - grateful. (WomensLaw Email Hotline, March 2021)

And:

Thank you, your organization has been amazing at providing guidance and support. I wouldn’t have known where to start without this type of service and I never in a million years ever thought it would be me needing this. (WomensLaw Email Hotline, February 2021)

It is especially rewarding when someone tells us that we explained the information and provided resources and are also one of the first people to make them feel heard and understood. Here is one such reply that we received on the Email Hotline:

You did awesome and it made me feel better. When someone actually helps me my husband and I smile again knowing there is help put there. We get so emotionally exhausted it physical and emotionally wears me out. Yea I'm going to get those links out thank you and I will keep you posted.

(WomensLaw Email Hotline response, March 2021)

We are constantly updating our website (http://www.WomensLaw.org) – making changes and additions to it daily. Our priority is to make sure that the legal information that we have is current with changes in the laws and to continue to add new information that would be useful for victims and survivors of abuse. Between February 1, 2021 and April 30, 2021, we made hundreds of updates, such as:

Based on recent changes to the Puerto Rico Civil Code, we added 13 new statutes related to custody and 5 new statutes related to divorce to our Selected Puerto Rico Statutes page.
Based on a change in the law in California that adds coercive control to their definition of domestic violence, we updated the What is the legal definition of domestic violence? question on the California Restraining Orders page. The update is in English and Spanish!
We updated and reorganized our Wyoming Gun Laws section to make it more state specific and easier to use. We also added one related statute to our Wyoming Selected State Statutes section. All changes in English.
Based on a change in the law that allows a judge to order the abuser to refrain from remotely controlling any connected devices affecting the home, vehicle or property of the person protected by the order, we updated What protections can I get in an order of protection? in our New York Restraining Orders section. The change is in English and Spanish.
In our About Abuse page, we updated the content and links in English and Spanish in the In the Workplace, which has information about sexual harassment in the workplace and workplace restraining orders.
In our North Carolina Civil No Contact Orders (“50C Orders”) section, we added information about an employer being able to file on behalf of an abused employee to the question Am I eligible to file for a civil no-contact order? Changes made in English and Spanish.
We updated and reorganized 18 questions on our New Hampshire Gun Laws section to make it more state specific and easier to use. We also added two relevant statutes to our New Hampshire Selected State Statutes section. The changes in the gun laws section are in English, but Spanish is coming soon!
We added a new question in English to our Ohio Domestic Violence/Dating Violence Protection Orders page called Can I get a protection order if I’m a minor? We added a similar question called Can I get a protection order if I’m a minor? What if the abuser is a minor? to our Stalking or Sexually Oriented Offense Protection Orders page. Spanish soon to come. We also revised four questions to add the term “dating violence protection order” and changed the name of the section to make it clearer that this section applies to victims of dating violence too, not just domestic violence.
We added links to a motion to modify or terminate a protection order, a motion for contempt, and a dating violence protection order to our Ohio Download Court Forms page. Changes made in English and Spanish.
We updated and reorganized 12 questions in our Nebraska State Gun Laws section to make it easier to use and more state specific. All changes in English, but Spanish is coming soon!
We added the crime of cyberstalking to our Washington Crimes page in English and Spanish and to the Selected Washington Statutes page in English.
We added the Elder Victims of Crime Program (part of Area Agency on Aging of Western Arkansas) to our Arkansas Local Programs page and Legal Assistance page in English (Spanish coming soon). We also updated all of the resources in our Arkansas Legal Assistance and added six new legal organizations in English and Spanish.
We revised the New Jersey Download Court Forms page to add links to petitions to modify, enforce, and dismiss a restraining order. Changes made in English and Spanish.

.…and these are just a handful of the changes and improvements that we made over the past three months! See them all here on our What’s New page: https://www.womenslaw.org/about/news

Thank you for supporting WomensLaw and the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV).

Stay in the loop! Sign up for occasional action alerts and updates from NNEDV at: NNEDV.org/signup

Links:

Permalink

Mar 3, 2021
Legal Information Promotes Safety

By Stacey Sarver | WomensLaw Director

WomensLaw is the first and only free, legal resource for survivors of domestic and dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking that offers safety and legal information and resources in "plain language" in both English and Spanish. We are dedicated to empowering survivors and their advocates to make informed decisions about their options, safety, and legal remedies.

From November 1, 2020, to January 31, 2021, 798,513 people accessed the life-saving information that is housed on WomensLaw.org.

In the past three months (November 2020 through January 2021), we worked directly with 1,257 victims, survivors, and their friends, advocates, or family members through our Email Hotline. This unique hotline offers victims a direct line to ask a question of our attorneys and volunteers, who specialize in domestic violence and the law. We respond to every request as quickly as possible, but take time to respond thoughtfully and include individualized resources and information. We frequently correspond back and forth with the women and men who write in, and many are grateful for our assistance and support, as below:

“Hi, I just wanted to say thank you for being kind and helpful. This is very scary, with everything being unknown and I have felt myself wanting to slip back into just accepting this is how things are only because it is what I have known for so long. But I have been trying very hard to keep moving forward despite the fear. Honestly thank you is not enough but really just thank you so much.” (WomensLaw Email Hotline response, December 2020)

And:

“Thank you. The work you do is commendable and I know it helps woman who are struggling to get out of bad relationships.” (WomensLaw Email Hotline, January 2021)

We answer questions and provide our expertise on a wide range of topics - including custody, divorce, relocation, and more. Often, victims or their loved ones are writing in to us to get some basic legal information about their situation when they cannot find legal representation. Although we do not provide legal advice, we can explain relevant laws that may help the victim to make an informed decision.

It is especially rewarding when someone tells us that we explained the information in a way that was easy to understand and lets us know that the information helped them feel supported. Here is one such reply that we received on the Email Hotline:

“Thank you for your reply. I am very grateful to not feel so alone.” (WomensLaw Email Hotline response, November 2020)

We are constantly updating our website (http://www.WomensLaw.org) – making changes and additions to it daily. Our priority is to make sure that the legal information that we have is current with changes in the laws and to continue to add new information that would be useful for victims and survivors of abuse. Between November 1, 2020, and January 31, 2021, we made hundreds of updates, such as:

Because of a new law in Washington that allows a judge to consider litigation abuse when making a decision about custody, we added a new question in the Washington Custody section called Can the judge restrict the parenting plan based on the conduct of the other parent? The new question is in English, Spanish coming soon!
We reviewed and re-wrote the information on our Puerto Rico Crimes page in English and Spanish. Based on this, we also added the criminal statutes of assault and attenuated severe assault (in Spanish).
On our Tennessee Crimes page, we added a link to the law regarding an unwed mother having custody of a child if there is no court order alongside the crime of custodial interference. This way, our users can have a better understanding of whether the crime of custodial interference would apply to their situation.
Based on an Email Hotline inquiry, we added a statute regarding an unwed mother having custody of a child if there is no court order to our Selected Tennessee Statutes page.
We added five statutes to our Washington Selected State Statutes section.
We rewrote the Puerto Rico Suing an Abuser for Money page in both English and Spanish to better explain this process for victims of abuse.
On our North Carolina Download Court Forms page, we added a link in English and Spanish to a motion for contempt for violating a 50-B order.
We updated the following questions in our South Carolina Orders of Protection section to reflect the 2017 South Carolina Supreme Court decision that said requiring cohabitating couples to be of the opposite sex was unconstitutional as applied:
In addition, we added information about having to serve the respondent at least five days before the hearing in Step 4: Service of process.
On our South Dakota Places that Help page, we updated 89 resources as follows: 5 Statewide Programs, 18 Local Programs, 66 Courthouse Locations. All updates were made in English and, for the first time, all resources were translated into Spanish!
In our South Dakota Local Programs page, we added the following five programs: Beacon Center, Catholic Family Services – Aberdeen, Catholic Family Services – Brookings, Catholic Family Services – Pierre, and Catholic Family Services – Yankton. We also added the following three courthouses to our South Dakota Courthouse Locations page: Hand County - Third Judicial Circuit Court, Tripp County - Sixth Judicial Circuit Court, and Oglala Lakota County - Seventh Judicial Circuit Court. All additions were made in English and Spanish.
We updated and reorganized our Kansas State Gun Laws section to make it more state law focused and easier to use. This included updates to 14 questions in English! Spanish coming soon!
We added one new statutes related to child support to our Selected Wisconsin Statutes page.
We expanded the Wisconsin Child Support page to include 4 new questions.
We added two new statutes related to child support to our Selected Massachusetts Statutes page.
We added information to 4 questions in our Massachusetts Child Support section and reviewed and updated the whole page for clarity. Spanish translation coming soon!
We expanded the Massachusetts Housing Laws to include 5 new questions for victims of domestic violence or sexual assault who need to terminate their lease for fear of immediate harm and we updated 1 question. Spanish translation coming soon.

… And these are just a handful of the changes and improvements that we made over the past three months! See everything we did on WomensLaw.org on our What’s New page: https://www.womenslaw.org/about/news

Thank you for supporting WomensLaw and the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV).

Stay in the loop! Sign up for occasional action alerts and updates from NNEDV at: NNEDV.org/signup

Links:

Permalink

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