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About the Women's Justice Center |
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~ Overview and History ~
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Mission: Women’s Justice Center works to end violence against women and children, especially in the Latina and other underserved communities. We do this through advocacy, activism, and education. All our services, workshops, and publications are free of charge to the community.
Founded in 1998 in Sonoma County, we are an independent, tax deductible 501(c)3 non profit. Our primary funding comes from a broad base of individuals in our community, Women’s Justice Center does not receive any government funds. This is intentional so that we can freely advocate vigorously for women wherever their rights are violated.
Advocacy: Since our founding, Women’s Justice Center has helped over 1,500 individual victims of rape, domestic violence, and child abuse get free of the violence. We’ve given information and consultation to many more. The majority of our clients are Latinas.
One of the things we’re most proud of is that of all the women we’ve helped escape a violent situation, we’ve only had to put ten women in a shelter. We work very hard to make sure that women don’t lose their housing as a price of ending the violence, and to make sure that police and prosecutors get the perpetrator under adequate control so women don't have to flee.
www.justicewomen.com: Our fully bilingual web site is visited by an average of over 1,800 people every day, educating people around the world. The site has more than 100 original, paired, English/Spanish guides for women on how to deal with rape, domestic violence, and child abuse. An alternate address for our web site for persons who speak Spanish is www.ayudaparamujeres.com.
Improving Criminal Justice Response to Violence Against Women and Children: Good law enforcement response to violence against women is key to saving women’s lives. We work tirelessly to improve this response from police, prosecutors, judges, and probation officials. We do this through collaboration with local and national law enforcement groups, and by creating bilingual guides to help women advocate for themselves and others in the criminal justice system. We also investigate and report on law enforcement history leading up to homicides of women and girls.
News Round-up/Resumen de Noticias: Women's Justice Center publishes a daily round-up of violence-against-women news, reports, studies, announcements, opinion and more, some in English, some in Spanish. These reports are published daily on our web site at www.justicewomen.com/articles.
Bilingual Booklets: Women’s Justice Center writes and publishes bilingual booklets on violence against women. We”ve now distributed over 20,000 of these booklets free to the community. Titles include How to Help a Friend, Special for Immigrant Women, Tips for Testifying, 12 Teaching Scenarios, A Rape Quiz, The Greatest Escape, Special for Rape Victims, and more.
Talks-Training-Workshops: We educate to stop the violence. In English or Spanish, in workshops and talks, we teach others how to advocate for individual victims, and how to end the violence in the community.
More Women and Minorities in our Local Police Agencies: We track the sex and race statistics of local law enforcement agencies, advocate for women and minority cadets and officers, and educate the community and law enforcement on the measures needed to improve recruiting and retention of female and minority officers.
Civil Rights Legal Case Work: We investigate and advocate on civil rights legal cases selected to make major social change. One such case was the Teresa Macias domestic violence homicide which we worked with the Purple Berets. In June, 2002, as a result of the landmark lawsuit, the Sheriff’s Department was ordered to pay $1 million for failing to respond properly to Teresa’s more than 25 calls for help before she was murdered. This case established for the first time women’s constitutional rights to police protection in 11 western states.
Justicia: Women’s Justice Center publishes and distributes 1000 copies of our newsletter, Justicia, keeping our supporters and community informed and involved in stopping the violence against women.
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rights reserved © 2010 by Woman's Justice Center |