Gender Equality United States Project #21037

Legal Help for Domestic Violence Victims

by National Network to End Domestic Violence

Project Report | Feb 17, 2017
Supporting Survivors with Legal Information

By Stacey Sarver | WomensLaw Director

WomensLaw Gives Survivors Hope

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 November 1, 2016 to January 31, 2017, 337,683 people accessed the life-saving information that is housed on WomensLaw.org. In the past three months (November 2016 through January 2017), we worked directly with 786 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:

“Thank you very much. This information was very helpful and the way you presented the information was clear and precise. Thank you for taking the time to look into my case. I truly appreciate it.” (WomensLaw Email Hotline response, December 2016)

And:

Thank you so much. I wasn't even aware that this may be a possibility. You have been very helpful. Thank you so much for your concern and getting back to me so quickly. You did certify what has to be done. Thank you so much for what you do! (WomensLaw Email Hotline response, December 2016)

We answer questions and provide our expertise on a wide range of topics - including custody, divorce, relocation, and more. Often times, 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. Here is one recent inquiry that we received on the Email Hotline from a victim advocate, which demonstrates how the basic legal information we provide can help provide clarity about the law:

“Yes, Yes, Yes. Thank you for this information. We would have approached this situation completely wrong causing delays in getting useful help and extra unnecessary stress on the victim. You have done a very good thing. Your effort and dedication are greatly appreciated. You have been a positive force in helping an eight year old boy.” (WomensLaw Email Hotline response, September 2016)

We are constantly updating our website, 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 2016 and January 2017, we made several updates to WomensLaw.org.

We revised the information on our North Carolina State Gun Laws page to make it more clear and concise and to add more information about a felon in possession of a firearm. All changes were done in English and Spanish. Based on a new law that recently took effect, we added the question If my child was conceived from rape, can the offender get legal decision-making or parenting time? to our Arizona Custody page in Spanish and the English . We added an Impersonation page to our Technology Abuse section. We added an Idaho Protection Order Against Malicious Harassment, Stalking, and Telephone Harassment page. We translated into Spanish the following sections on our Virginia Know the Laws page: State Gun Laws, Housing Laws, Divorce, and Crimes. Look out for more translated sections coming soon! We created state-specific divorce sections in Alabama and Iowa. Based on an Email Hotline inquiry, we added the question If there is a custody order in place, can I relocate? to our Kentucky Custody page. We completely re-wrote the Wyoming Custody page, adding new questions and revising all of the other questions…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 on this Site page: http://womenslaw.org/simple.php?sitemap_id=63

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

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Nov 18, 2016
Empowering Survivors with Legal Information

By Stacey Sarver | WomensLaw Legal Director

Learn more at WomensLaw.org

From August 1 to October 31, 2016, nearly 373,000 people (372,966) accessed the life-saving information that is housed on WomensLaw.org. In the past three months (August 2016 to October 2016), we worked directly with 877 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:

“Thank you again, so very much. It's so amazing that you hear me. I will be in touch after I attempt and connect with the resource you've given. I cannot express my appreciation of you, your time, your knowledge, and your 'give a damn.'" -WomensLaw Email Hotline response

And:

“Hi, and thank you for listening and responding. Feeling like no one cares hurts the very most. So please understand this correspondence means more than you know.” -WomensLaw Email Hotline response

We answer questions and provide our expertise on a wide range of topics - including custody, divorce, relocation, and more. In recent years, the number of questions that we have received about non-consensual image sharing (often referred to as “revenge porn”) has greatly increased. Here is one recent inquiry that we received on the Email Hotline, which demonstrates the need for legal information and resources for victims of abuse where the abuser is sharing or threatening to share intimate images of the victim as a means to further the abuse:

“My friend is being repeatedly and violently raped by her boyfriend. She stays with him only because he threatens to send an explicit video of her and him to her friends and family if she doesn't comply with everything he asks. How can she get out of this situation in a way that he can't send the video to anyone? He is getting more and more extreme with his violence. I told her she should go to the police, but she is worried that they won't arrest him or take his phone before he finds out and has a chance to send the video.” -WomensLaw Email Hotline inquiry

We are constantly updating our website, 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 August and October 2016, we made several updates to WomensLaw.org. To address the increased Email Hotline inquiries involving mis-use of technology as a means to abuse one’s partner (such as the email mentioned above), we added new information to our recently-created Technology Abuse section. We now have information on sexting, nonconsensual image sharing, electronic surveillance, stalking/cyberstalking and civil and criminal options for responding to technology abuse. We also added a page about Michigan housing laws that protect victims; we added new information about divorce to 10 states’ Divorce sections; in Maine and Indiana, we added a question about a mother’s rights if her child is conceived due to rape; we re-wrote our State Gun Laws pages in Rhode Island and Idaho; we completely revised the contact information and added descriptions of services for 57 legal resources on our Pennsylvania Finding a Lawyer page…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 on this Site page: http://womenslaw.org/simple.php?sitemap_id=63

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

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

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Aug 9, 2016
WomensLaw: Because Knowledge is Power

By Emily Dahl | Senior Development & Communications Specialist

Learn more at WomensLaw.org

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 May 1, 2016 to July 31, 2016, there were 378,330 people who accessed the life-saving information that is housed on WomensLaw.org. In the past three months (May 2016 to July 2016), we worked directly with 643 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:

“I wanted to take the time to write back to you, and let you know I really appreciate your response, and this organization for allowing women the opportunity to voice their concerns. It means more than you know… I appreciate all of the information and links you provided to me, and I will look through them. Again, I wanted to take the time to thank you, and in the event I need to, I will be glad to recommend this website to the women I know. Thank you for everything!” - -WomensLaw Email Hotline response

And:

“Thank you so much. This information is very helpful. I really appreciate you sending me a variety of links, and taking the time to respond. I wish I would have came across womenslaw.org a couple years ago, but I'm glad I did.” -WomensLaw Email Hotline response

We answer questions and provide our expertise on a wide range of topics - including custody, divorce, relocation, and more. Here is one recent inquiry that we received on the Email Hotline, which demonstrates the need for legal information and resources for victims of abuse dealing with custody issues:

“My son's father took him out of the state months ago. And is not allowing me to receive any pictures of my son or talk to him. I never gave him permission to leave with my son. PLEASE HELP.” -WomensLaw Email Hotline inquiry

We are constantly updating our website, 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 and July 2016, we made several updates to WomensLaw.org. We added information to our Minnesota Orders for Protection page and Harassment Restraining Orders page; we created a new section called Technology Misuse under our Learn About Abuse section; we updated and augmented our Kentucky Statewide Programs page and Finding a Lawyer page; we improved our Alaska Crimes page by hyperlinking 29 different degrees of crimes to their definitions on our State Statutes page; updated our state gun laws page and custody page for Nevada…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 on this Site page: http://womenslaw.org/simple.php?sitemap_id=63

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

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