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:
… 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
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