What’s New on WomensLaw.org
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February 2016
We updated and edited our Federal Gun Laws page in English and Spanish. We also updated the corresponding federal statutes on our Federal Statutes page.
We updated the links on our Helping Others Doctors and Health Care Workers section in English and Spanish.
Thanks to input from Anu Abraham, Esq., Staff Attorney at the New Jersey Coalition to End Domestic Violence, we significantly improved the information on our New Jersey Restraining Orders page (Spanish translation soon to come!)
We updated all of the resources on our Guam Finding a Lawyer page and Courthouse Locations page.
We updated all of the resources in English and Spanish on our Nevada Where to Find Help page, including 33 state and local programs, 5 organizations under Finding a Lawyer, and 21 Courthouse Locations.
We improved the English and Spanish content in 18 states/territories in the State Gun Laws section for the questions “What is the difference between state and federal gun laws?” and “Who do I notify if I think the abuser should not have a gun?” (The other 36 states/territories were completed in January 2016.)
January 2016
On our Minnesota Harassment Restraining Orders page, we added information on violations in the Violation of a harassment restraining order section and added statutes to our Minnesota statutes page.
On our Arizona Domestic Violence Protection Orders page, we improved the information contained in What types of protection orders are there? How long do they last? in English and Spanish.
Based on an Email Hotline inquiry, we added 4 new statutes to our Montana Statutes page regarding enforcement and registration of a foreign custody order.
We improved the English content in 36 states in the State Gun Laws section for the questions “What is the difference between state and federal gun laws?” and “Who do I notify if I think the abuser should not have a gun?” We will now begin updating this same content in the remaining 18 states, in Spanish and English.
We updated our California Housing Laws section in English and Spanish based on changes to California law that became effective 1/1/16.
On our Pennsylvania Custody page, we added a new question called If my child was conceived from sexual assault, can the offender get custody or visitation? and added much more information to the existing question, Can a parent who committed violence get custody or visitation? All changes were made in English and Spanish. We also added three related statutes to our PA Statutes page.
In response to an Email Hotline inquiry, we added a statute about annulment to our North Carolina Statutes page.
We significantly edited our North Dakota Protection Orders page and added relevant statutes to our ND Statutes page.
December 2015
We added the crimes of stalking in the first degree and stalking in the second degree to our Kentucky Crimes page.
We added 4 new statutes to our Louisiana Statutes page related to Louisiana’s new sexual assault protective orders. Next, we will create a new page in our Know the Laws section to explain the laws in “plain language.”
We significantly edited our Washington State Gun Laws page and added relevant statutes to our WA Statutes page.
We added a new crime to our Maine Statutes page and Crimes page called the Unauthorized dissemination of certain private images, which was added to Maine law in October 2015.
A new law became effective in October 2015 in North Carolina, which created a civil no contact order for victims of sex offenses where the offender was convicted of the offense in criminal court and ordered to register as a sex offender. WomensLaw.org added the 11 relevant statutes to our NC Statutes page along with a note to our website visitors to explain that a new page will soon be created.
We updated all of the non-legal organizations (more than 100 of them!) that are listed on our New York State and Local Programs page, adding descriptions of the services offered for every listing and adding many new listings.
We added new information in Spanish and English to the question Can I get my child’s medical expenses included in the order? in our North Carolina Child Support section based on a clarification in North Carolina’s laws regarding what is a “reasonable cost” for health coverage for a child. We also updated various other questions on the North Carolina Know the Laws pages based on other statutory changes.
We edited and updated our LGBTQ Victims page (formerly the Same-Sex Abuse page).
We translated all of our newly-updated New York State and Local Programs into Spanish (114 records!)
In response to recent Email Hotline inquiries, we added 3 new statutes to our NY Statutes page regarding the laws on registering an out-of-state custody order in New York and 1 new statute to our CA Statutes page related to parental kidnapping. We also added a question to our California Parental Kidnapping page in English and Spanish to explain the statute, called If I take my children to live out of state or hide them from the other parent, can I be charged with parental kidnapping?
We added a new statute that became effective December 1, 2015 to our North Carolina Statutes page and Crimes page called Disclosure of private images.
We added a new statute to our Montana Statutes page and Crimes page called surreptitious visual observation or recordation.
We revised the information in Spanish and English in How can I tell if my friend is in an abusive relationship? on our Information for Teens page.
We improved our Information for Teens page in English and Spanish.
We updated our Missouri Restraining Orders pages based on changes to Missouri law that allows victims of sexual assault to get orders of protection. We also added the crime of parental kidnapping and the defense to parental kidnapping to our Missouri Crimes page and Missouri Statutes page.
We translated into English our recently revised Protection Orders section for Puerto Rico, in which we made multiple changes based on revisions to the state laws. Previously, this page was only in Spanish.
Based on recent changes to Minnesota laws, we changed all of the information on our Minnesota Custody page and we added a new question called Can the non-custodial parent have access the child’s medical, health, and school records?
We added the crime of Distribution of intimate images without or against consent to our North Dakota Crimes page and Statutes page.
We added a new law to our Louisiana Statutes page regarding possession of firearms when there is a protective order in place and we added new “plain-language” information about this to the following questions in the State Gun Laws and Protective Orders (for Domestic Abuse) sections, respectively: I have a protective order against the abuser. Can s/he keep a gun or buy a new gun? and How can a protective order help me?
November 2015
We updated the Colorado Download Court Forms page in English and Spanish.
We updated the contact information for legal resources listed on our South Dakota Finding a Lawyer page and added 6 new legal services organizations to the page. We also updated the links to outside information on our South Dakota Custody page.
Continuing towards our goal of translating the whole state of Washington, we translated the Washington Custody page into Spanish!
We created a new section to our Maine Know the Laws section - check out our Maine Housing Laws page! We also added the relevant statutes to our Maine Statutes page.
October 2015
We added a new resource to our National Organizations Posting Sexual Images without Consent/”Revenge Porn” section in English and Spanish.
We translated into Spanish the D.C. Civil Protection Orders (for domestic violence victims) page and the D.C. Custody page, which were updated in English in September.
In response to an inquiry on our Email Hotline about this topic, we added a new question in English and Spanish to our California Divorce section called If my spouse was convicted of domestic violence or sexual assault against me, can I be ordered to pay him/her alimony? We also added the language of four statutes that are related to that question in our CA Statutes page and linked to one of them on our Crimes page.
We translated into Spanish the contact information for 114 North Carolina State and Local Programs, which we recently updated in English.
We verified and updated the contact information for each courthouse on our Courthouse Locations page in Washington in English and Spanish.
We added a new resource in English and Spanish to our National Organizations Rape/Sexual Assault page called the It Happened to Alexa Foundation, which offers financial support to rape victims’ families to travel to a criminal trial against the rapist.
We updated our Oregon Restraining Orders section to include the commonly-used acronyms for each restraining order and to make it clearer that the sexual abuse protective orders protect victims of all forms of sexual assault.
We updated all of the legal organizations (more than 100!) that are listed on our New York Finding a Lawyer page, adding descriptions of the services offered for every listing and adding many new listings.
We translated into Spanish the recently-updated legal resources on our Washington Finding a Lawyer page (57 of them!)
September 2015
We updated our Maine Know the Laws pages based on recent changes to Maine laws. For example, we added new reasons why a person can be prohibited from having a firearm in our State Gun Laws pages; we added information about suing an abuser for damages to rental property in our Suing Your Abuser page; we added information about financial exploitation to our Protection from Abuse Orders (for the elderly/dependent/incapacitated); and we added 5 new crimes to our Crimes page and ME Statutes page.
We substantially revised our Washington Custody page, improving the information we had and adding a new section called The effect of military deployment on custody/visitation. Our next step is to translate it into Spanish!
We updated our Louisiana Protective Orders (for Domestic Abuse) pages based on changes in Louisiana laws, adding new information to What types of protective orders are there? How long do they last? and to What can I do if the abuser violates the order? We also created a new question in our Protective Orders (for Stalking) page called What can I do if the abuser violates the order?
We translated into Spanish all of the legal and non-legal resources and courthouse information on our Oklahoma Where to Find Help page, which includes more than 150 records.
We added information to our Oregon Sexual Abuse Protective Orders page.
We added a new question to our Kentucky Custody page called If my child was conceived from sexual assault, can the offender get custody or visitation?
We updated our Kansas Custody section based on recent legislative changes, including augmenting the question How will a judge make a decision about custody, residency, and parenting time?
We translated into Spanish the restraining order information for the state of Washington including: WA Domestic Violence Orders for Protection (DVOP), WA Sexual Assault Protection Orders, WA Stalking Protection Orders and WA Civil Anti-Harassment Orders.
We added a new section to our Iowa Restraining Orders page called Protective Orders (Based on Elder Abuse).
Based on changes to D.C. law, we updated our D.C. State Gun Laws page.
We updated the information on how Salon Professionals can help victims of domestic violence, under our Helping Others tab.
Based on changes to Arkansas law, we updated and improved our Arkansas State Gun Laws page, in English and Spanish.
We created a new Louisiana Sexual Assault Protective Order page.
We substantially revised our Georgia State Gun Laws page, updating and rewriting the information we had in that section.
We translated into Spanish our Illinois Stalking No Contact Orders page and our Illinois Civil No Contact Orders (for Victims of Sexual Assault).
We revised our Washington, D.C. Restraining Orders and Custody pages, updating the information we had in those sections.
August 2015
After being contacted by NIWAP to add them as a resource to WomensLaw.org, we added the National Immigrant Women’s Advocacy Project (NIWAP), both in English and Spanish, to our Helping Others page, under the Lawyers section.
We updated all of the legal and non-legal resources and courthouse information on our Oklahoma Where to Find Help page.
We have begun to translate all of the information for an additional state, Washington! So far, we translated all of the sections in our Restraining Orders page, which includes Domestic Violence Orders for Protection page, the Sexual Assault Protection Orders page, the Civil Anti-Harassment Orders page, and the Stalking Protection Orders page.
We added information to the Civil No Contact Orders page on our Illinois Restraining Orders section and added several additional statutes related to civil no contact orders to our IL Statutes page.
We added information to the question How can a restraining order help me? on our Connecticut Restraining Orders page based on a 2015 change to the law, which allows the judge to order additional protections in temporary and permanent restraining orders.
We updated all of the legal and non-legal resources in Spanish and English on our Arkansas Where to Find Help page. In addition, we added 5 new organizations that provide services to domestic violence victims and survivors on our AR State and Local Programs page and 2 new legal resources on our AR Finding a Lawyer page.
We updated our California Housing Laws section in English and Spanish to reflect a recent change in the law that requires a victim who is terminating his/her lease to pay rent only for the next 14 days instead of 30 days.
We updated a few questions on our Arizona State Gun Laws page based on legislative changes to include two more legal reasons why a person might be prohibited from having a gun in his/her possession. We also changed information on our Arizona Custody page to reflect changes in the law regarding relocation of a child. All changes were made in English and Spanish.
We added additional cyberstalking resources to our Stalking/Cyberstalking page in English and Spanish.
We updated our Arkansas Domestic Violence Orders of Protection section in Spanish and English based on amendments to Arkansas law; changes include adding in-laws as a possible family or household member against whom an order of protection can be sought. We added the new crime in Arkansas called Unlawful distribution of sexual images or recordings to our Crimes page and our AR Statutes pages.
July 2015
Based on changes to Minnesota laws, we added new information to our Minnesota Orders for Protection page, Harassment Restraining Orders page, and State Gun Laws page, including a new question entitled What will happen to the abuser’s firearms if the judge includes a firearm restriction in my order for protection?
We revised our Marital / Partner Rape page in English and Spanish, improving the content and updating the statistics regarding the occurrence of sexual coercion/rape within intimate relationships.
We updated all of the resources in Washington on our Finding a Lawyer page.
We added the crime of “Malicious or unlawful assault; assault; battery” to the West Virginia Crimes page.
We created a new section in Washington called Stalking Protection Orders.
Based on statutory changes to Alabama law that took effect in June 2015, we updated almost all of the Know the Laws sections in Alabama, adding new questions and revising others. We also added two new statutes to the Alabama Statutes page.
We updated all the legal and non-legal resources in Spanish and English on our Washington, DC Where to Find Help page. In addition, we now have 5 new organizations on our DC State and Local Programs and 5 new legal resources on our DC Finding a Lawyer page.
Inspired by an Email Hotline inquiry, we just added a new section to our Oregon pages about the Housing Laws that protect victims of stalking, sexual assault and domestic violence.
We updated the contact information and added descriptions for the 39 organizations that provide services to domestic violence victims and survivors on our Arkansas State and Local Programs page.
We added a new Danger Assessment page in our Learn About Abuse section, where users can learn more about some of the factors that indicate a victim is at greater risk of being seriously injured or killed by an abuser.
We revised the information on our Same-Sex Abuse page in English and Spanish and re-wrote two of the questions called: What does LGBTQ mean? and How common is domestic violence in the LGBTQ community?
We re-wrote and greatly improved the content of the Washington Domestic Violence Orders for Protection page, the Sexual Assault Protection Orders page, and the Civil Anti-Harassment Orders page and created the Stalking Protection Orders page.
We expanded our New Hampshire Stalking Protective Orders page, going from one question to seven. Check it out!
We added a new question to our Ohio Domestic Violence Protection Orders page called Can I file for a protection order against a minor?
June 2015
At the suggestion of people who wrote to us, we added a new resource to our National Organizations page, in Spanish and English, for Take Back the Night Foundation and the Support, Advocacy & Resource Center to our Washington Local Programs page. We also updated and translated into Spanish all of the resources on Finding a Lawyer page in California (78 of them!) in English and Spanish.
We improved the Alabama Finding a Lawyer page, updating all of the current listings, adding descriptions of services, and adding 4 new legal organizations to the list.
We updated all of the Illinois State and Local Programs (more than 60 of them), adding descriptions of services provided and additional programs - we also translated them all into Spanish.
With the help of the Puerto Rico Coalition, Coordinadora Paz para la Mujer, we were able to update all of the 100 legal and non-legal resources that we list on our Where to Find Help pages for victims and survivors of Puerto Rico. In addition, we now have 17 new State and Local Programs and 19 new resources on our Finding a Lawyer page.
We added the crime of custodial interference to our Oregon Crimes page.
In response to an inquiry on the Email Hotline, we added a new question in Spanish and English to our VAWA Laws for Abuse Victims page called Can I file for a VAWA self-petition if I am in another country?
May 2015
Need to find something on the WomensLaw.org website? Check out our completely new Search function! The “Search” button is accessible from any page, in the top right-hand corner of the website.
We updated the Relief from Abuse Orders page for Vermont.
We updated and completely revised the Restraining Orders page for the U.S. Virgin Islands and added several new crimes to our U.S. Virgin Islands Statutes page and Crimes page.
We improved the question entitled What is the legal definition of domestic violence in NJ? on our New Jersey Restraining Orders page by linking each crime listed in that question to the statute that defines it.
We updated all of the State and Local Programs in California (over 200 of them!) in English and Spanish.
We re-wrote and greatly improved the content of two questions on our Washington Custody page: Can a parent who committed domestic violence, sexual assault, or child abuse get decision-making powers or parenting time? and How will a judge make a decision about custody?
We updated all of the current Finding a Lawyer resources in Missouri and added two new resources.
We updated the resources in our State and Local Programs page and our Finding a Lawyer page in New Jersey.
We updated the Restraining Orders page in Tennessee and added several new crimes to our Tennessee Statutes page and Crimes page.
We added the crime of “Unlawful dissemination or sale of images of another” to the Virginia Crimes page and Virginia Statutes page.
April 2015
Check out our overhauled Choosing and Working with a Lawyer page! We re-wrote most of the sections, adding new information, and improving the overall content and translated the new page into Spanish.
We improved our Sexual Harassment in the Workplace page in English and Spanish.
We updated the sheriff department listings (in English and Spanish) on our Where to Find Help page in the following states: MA, NJ, NM, WA, FL, NY, OK, PA, TX, NC, IL, GA, CO, AR. More states to come!
March 2015
We added new information in English and Spanish to the Arkansas Custody question called If a custody order is already in place, how can I get it changed?
On our way to completing our translation of our Georgia, we translated our Divorce section into Spanish and our Moving to Another State with a Family Violence Protective Order section into Spanish.
We added new information in Michigan to the question Can a PPO be changed, terminated or extended?
We added some information to our Maryland Domestic Violence Protective Orders page about the right of a victim to get law enforcement to accompany him/her to the home to retrieve belongings and medication even without a protective order.
We added the crime of “Unauthorized use of electronic tracking device” to our Virginia Crimes page and Virginia Statutes page.
We added new information in English and Spanish to our North Carolina Custody section regarding custody/visitation rights to a child who was conceived from rape. We created a question called My child was conceived from rape. Can the offender/parent get custody or visitation? and added to the information on Can a parent who committed violence get custody or visitation? We also added the crime of “rape of a child” to our Crimes page and our Statutes page.
February 2015
We added the crime of “Revenge porn prohibited” to our Maryland Crimes page and Maryland Statutes page, based on the addition of this law by the Maryland Legislature at the end of 2014.
We updated all of the legal resources on our New Mexico Finding a Lawyer page and added 12 new resources. All updates and additions were made in English and Spanish.
We added a new section to our National Organizations page called Posting Sexual Images without Consent/”Revenge Porn” and listed in it the non-profit resource called the Cyber Civil Rights Legal Project.
In our Louisiana Suing Your Abuser section, we added links to 13 different city or county small claims courts since filing fees vary in each city. We also added two new crimes to our Louisiana Crimes page.
We added a new section to our Tennessee Custody section called The effect of military deployment on custody/visitation.
We added 6 new crimes to our Utah Crimes page.
We revised our California Parental Kidnapping page and added the crime of Deprivation of custody or right to visitation to our Crimes page (in English and Spanish) and to our CA Statutes page.
We added brief information to our California Suing Your Abuser page in Spanish and English about the tort of stalking and linked to the language of the law on our CA Statutes page.
Continuing with our translation of all of our Georgia content, we translated the Georgia Crimes page into back to top
We edited the Oklahoma State Gun Laws section, refining the information we had and adding new information to two questions, in both English and Spanish.
January 2015
As we make our way through translating our Georgia Know the Laws pages into Spanish, we just completed the translation (and reorganization) of our Georgia Custody page.
Based on a new law that became effective in Pennsylvania in September 2014, we added information to our Suing Your Abuser page about a victim’s right to sue someone who disseminates intimate images of him/her (in Spanish and English).
We added the Spanish translation our Crimes pages in North Carolina, New Mexico, and Puerto Rico.
December 2014
WomensLaw added two new sections to our Illinois Restraining Orders page: Stalking No Contact Orders and Civil No Contact Orders (for Victims of Sexual Assault). We plan to expand these sections, especially the latter one, to make them more comprehensive in the coming months.
November 2014
We revised our Georgia Stalking Protective Orders page and added new information to our Georgia Bond for Good Behavior page. We also added 4 additional crimes to our Georgia Crimes page.
We are thrilled to begin translating into Spanish the information in the Know the Laws section for a new state, Georgia. We just completed the Spanish translation of the Family Violence Protection Orders page - you can check it out here. More to come soon!
We revised the Puerto Rico Orders of Protection for the Elderly page in Spanish and added the English translation of the page.
We translated into Spanish the recently-added section to our New Mexico page, which, in English, is called Civil Restraining Orders (for harassment or other harm).
We improved our Ohio Domestic Violence Protection Orders page, re-writing various questions, and adding new statutes to our OH Statutes page to correspond with the new information added on the protection orders page.
October 2014
We completed the Spanish translation for three recently-added questions on our Colorado Custody page (in English, the questions are: If my child was conceived due to a sexual assault, can the offender’s rights to the child be terminated?; Can a parent who committed abuse against me or my child get parental responsibilities (parenting time/decision-making responsibilities; and How will a judge make a decision about allocation of parental responsibilities?)
We clarified / improved some information on our Alabama Protection From Abuse Orders page. See What is the legal definition of domestic abuse in Alabama? and Who is eligible for a protection from abuse (PFA) order?
Based on a 2014 change in Ohio law, we added a new question to our Stalking or Sexually Oriented Offense Protection Orders section and we revised and improved the whole Stalking or Sexually Oriented Offense Protection Orders section. We also added 11 sexual crimes to our Ohio Statutes page and linked to those definitions on our Ohio Crimes page.
We added 10 new resources in English and Spanish on our NC Finding a Lawyer page by including contact information for each Legal Aid of North Carolina office.
In response to an email inquiry we received on the Email Hotline about custody in the US Virgin Islands, we revised the question: What factors will a judge consider when deciding custody? and added a new question: What factors will a judge consider when deciding custody and visitation when there is domestic violence?
In response to an email inquiry we received on the Email Hotline, we added a new question and a new statute about grandparent visitation rights in Illinois.
We created a new section in our Louisiana pages called Protective Orders (for Stalking) based on a new law that became effective in August 2014.
In response to an email inquiry we received on the Email Hotline regarding the right to terminate a lease, we added a new section to the website that explains the rights of a victim in Virginia to terminate his/her lease. See the Virginia Housing Laws section for more information.
We added a new section to our New Mexico Restraining Orders page called Civil Restraining Orders (for harassment and other harm). The Spanish translation will be posted soon.
Check out our new Missouri State Gun Laws page. We now have State Gun Laws pages for every state and territory except for Hawaii.
We added a new section to the Montana Restraining Orders page called Orders of Protection (for crime victims) to make it clear to our readers that certain crime victims can qualify for an order of protection even if they do not have an intimate or familial relationship with the offender. We also updated all of the information in our Montana Orders of Protection (for domestic violence victims) page.
We added a new section with 3 new questions to our Washington Custody page called Relocating with your child.