Call 911 right away if you feel you are in immediate danger or are injured.
Home isn’t always the safest place. Many women, girls, trans and non-binary people face a heightened risk of violence, especially at home. Domestic violence is a form of gender-based violence that often plays out at home. It includes intimate partner violence, sexual assault, emotional abuse, child abuse and elder abuse. Abuse can be experienced physically, sexually, emotionally or financially. Guidelines continue to be in place for Women’s Shelters to alleviate exposure of women and their children to COVID-19 as well to ensure those who are symptomatic receive proper support and care. You are not alone, please see these local sources of help:
The Internet is a great resource for finding information that can help you make decisions about your personal situation. However, it's important to understand that the record of your Internet activities does not disappear when you close your browser. If the person who is abusing you is good on a computer, it may not be safe for you to be visiting sites for abused women unless you take precautions to hide your internet activities. These precautions include the following steps to help you remove your internet history if you are concerned that the person abusing you could check up on your activities:
Visit websites from a place other than your home, such as the public library, school, an internet café or your workplace.
Use a Private Browsing feature. Depending on your preference, the private tab or window can be accessed via the browser's Tabs and Windows menu or through a keyboard shortcut.
Firefox has the 'New Private Window' option from the orange 'Firefox' dropdown menu button at the top of the browser Ctrl+Shift+P
Google Chrome has the 'New incognito window' option from the menu button at the right of the address bar (universal three horizontal lines icon) Ctrl+Shift+N
Internet Explorer 8 and above has the 'InPrivate Browsing' option from the 'Safety' dropdown menu on the right Ctrl+Shift+P
Safari 5 incognito browsing can be accomplished by entering 'Private Browsing' mode via the 'Action' menu.
Opera 10.6 allows you to enable incognito browsing in your choice of a new tab or new window.
Delete cookies and clear your browser history (your cache). Cookies are a way for websites to track their visitors and their actions. They do this by storing small bits of information on your computer. Sometimes this means that the site will "remember" you when you visit again. For example, if you enter your name when you go to a website, it may display your name when you visit again. To Delete Cookies/ History from your computer if you are using Internet Explorer:
From the "Tools" menu at the top of the screen, click "Internet Options"
Click the "General" tab in the small pop-up screen that appears
From the "Temporary Internet Files" section, click the button "Delete Files"
From the "History Section", click the button "Clear History"
